My Two Brothers
by Lotus-Lily
Summary: Sabo sinks into the ocean...and wakes up in the modern world. When he reads a manga titled "One Piece" and realizes that Ace is going to die, he jumps back into his own world, intent on changing fate. "Get away from my brothers, Akainu!" A story of saving Ace.
1. Chapter 1

**Warning:** spoilers for the Whitebeard War and Luffy's past. Only read if you've gotten past this part in the manga.

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**A/N: **Uhm. Well. Call it an idea that's been brooding in the back of my head ever since I read about Sabo.

I love Sabo. The only bit of sunshine in Ace's life until Luffy comes along.

I know there have been so many other stories about Sabo actually being alive because Dragon saves him or whatever, but I thought it might be interesting to twist it a bit. What if Sabo fell into _our _world when he "died?" This is my take on this little bit of an idea. The story won't be too long, probably just 10 or 11 chapters, and they're very short chapters compared to my other ongoing work, Ghost Princess the Pirate.

And yeah, I admit, I really wanted to try saving Ace and Whitebeard.

So, here's to brotherly love (no yaoi or romance _ )! Even if the work is a bit rough, please understand. I scribbled this up in my spare time during finals week XD. Quality won't be as good, but I still hope it's readable.

Please enjoy!

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**Chapter 1**

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"Hey, Sabo! Reading those comics again?"

A red-haired boy in a blue school uniform practically threw his arm around his classmate's shoulder, peering at the open book in other's hands. Sabo grunted, but didn't budge. Instead, he simply waved an arm at his friend, never taking his eyes off the page.

"Get off me, Kyle. This volume is new. It just came out just this morning," Sabo told him.

"Come on, man! I know you've already read the latest chapters online…why do you even bother buying the print editions?"

"So that I can read it in case my computer crashes."

"M-hm. That's a fine excuse. Admit it, you're just a plain old otaku," Kyle teased. "You know what. You're pretty cool, you know? Got a sweet ride, got a bit of money under your belt, and all the girls got the hots for you, but one thing I have to say as your dear, dear friend is…get your nose out of those things and come karaoke with us!"

"For once!" another boy joined in. This one had three piercings on his right ear. The other students sitting in their desks around the classroom turned their faces away, trying their best to ignore the rowdy trio.

Just another lunch break for the senior class of Nabinogi High.

Kyle, exchanging scheming glances with his buddy Matt, took his voice up a notch.

"See, even Matt agrees with me. Sabo, you've got to come karaoke with us. This afternoon, on 3rd street. Be there! Ok? Ok?"

"You've got to come!" Matt slammed his hand down on Sabo's desk. The latter didn't even look up. Sabo flipped the next page of the comic book. He was about half-way through.

"You have to!" Kyle chorused.

"You must!" yelled Matt.

"…"

Flip.

"…"

"…"

Kyle and Matt stared long and hard at the book in their friend's hands. It was always the same book.

_One Piece._

Honestly, they didn't understand how such a smart kid like Sabo could be into such a childish comic.

A lot of kids in Nabinogi High had the impression that Sabo was just another laid-back delinquent at school.

If you're blonde, and you read manga during class instead of paying attention, that pretty much sealed your fate as a misfit.

And the incident 3 years ago only fanned the flames of these wildfire rumors. Although Kyle and Matt didn't witness it themselves, it was common knowledge that Sabo had beaten the crap out of some big-headed, beefy seniors on his first day of high school. Yes indeed, nobody tried to mess with Sabo after that.

Those seniors had gotten hospitalized for over a month.

But despite these rumors, Sabo was actually a decent guy. He'd helped Kyle out when a local gang had him surrounded one night—grabbed Kyle's hand and ran with him for dear life.

Same with Matt. When Matt got arrested for being at the scene of a pretty big gang fight, Sabo had come in as a witness to testify Matt's innocence.

And actually, Sabo got high marks in school. In fact, he ranked #2 in the entire nation. They both knew this, because they'd overheard the principal bragging about it over the phone to his fellow Board of Education members.

They also knew he had some sponsorship from the Japanese Navy or something.

So why was this guy, who by all means had a full ride waiting for him to Tokyo University, always the first one to purchase the latest _One Piece _volume at the store?

"Gotcha!"

"Not a chance," Sabo replied coolly, maneuvering his beloved mangaout of the reach of his friend's snatching hands. The offending hands retreated awkwardly; Kyle gave an uncharacteristic pout.

"At least change it up a bit! Why is it always _this_ one, anyways? Read _Naruto_ or something, then at least Matt won't complain!"

Matt, a pretty big _Naruto_ fan, nodded eagerly in agreement.

Sabo glanced up at them, and gave a toothy grin. "You know I'm not really into manga."

There it was, his trademark grin. The ragged pair of blue goggles he always wore around his neck seemed to gleam along with his smile.

"That doesn't make any sense, you know?" Kyle sighed, exasperated. "You don't like manga? Don't give me that. You _love _manga. You'd read _One Piece_ all day and night if you could. Heck, you probably _do _read it day and night!"

"Sometimes," Sabo answered, grinning.

"Whoa," Matt breathed, awed. "I never realized your love for this series bordered on such obsession. I'm just wondering, if you had to choose between _One Piece _and our English assignment that's worth 90% of our grade, then which one…?"

"_One Piece_."

No-brainer.

"That's seriously obsessive! Why do you love it so much?"

Sabo flipped another page of the volume. Absent-mindedly, he began fingering the blue goggles hanging from his neck. It was a habit, whenever he became lost in thought. "Because…"

Kyle, glancing over Sabo's shoulder at the manga in question, saw a picture of a goofy-looking boy in a straw hat. Despite the lack of color in the comic panels, the black-and-white images seemed to come alive on the page. Sabo rubbed his thumb over the face of Monkey D. Luffy. A fond smile came over his features.

"Because…this guy is my little brother."

"…"

"…cool! So you're actually related to this Oda guy? Hey, then can you get me an autograph or something? He's famous, after all…"

Sabo just gave them another smile, before turning back to the pages. Luffy had just punched a Tennryubito in the face, and one by one, the reactions of the other characters panned out on the page.

Sabo chuckled quietly, ignoring the other two boys' chatter. "Luffy…you never change."

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Green, yellow, pink, and neon blue lights swirled around the room. Plates of crackers and cheese lined the table, and open soda cans lay strewn about the sofas. The air felt stuffy, and smelled of stale smoke and cigarettes. Trying his best to keep his face impassive, Sabo watched as Kyle and Matt let loose into the microphones in their hands.

In the end, those two managed to drag Sabo over to one of the karaoke places in town.

They were both completely tone-deaf. But they still loved to sing. It was even worse because they always managed to find the songs that required the most belting and screaming.

Shaking his head, Sabo adjusted the laptop on the table and tuned out the ringing voices.

The screen lay open to an illegal download of the latest chapters of _One Piece_.

"Are you still reading those things, Sabo!?" Matt shouted into his mike. "Give it a rest! Come on, join us!"

In response, Sabo gave them a smile and a wave. They took the cue, and continued belting.

Neither of them noticed that their friend's smile looked strained. As if worried.

Very…worried.

Sabo's eyes quickly darted over the digital copy of chapter 572. He allowed himself a moment to linger on the exuberant faces of Portgas D. Ace and Monkey D. Luffy. They both looked happy, emerging from a tunnel of flames.

But…

The blonde teenager bit the inside of his mouth, and clicked for the next page. This battle, this fight…however it ended, it would not end well.

Call it a gut instinct.

Call it intuition.

Call it his brain at work, noting the positions of each of the main players in this battle. The Whitebeard pirates, surrounded as they were, would not be able to escape unscathed.

Just this morning, Sabo had believed that both Ace and Luffy would come out of this safely. Even in the pits of Impel Down, there was no doubt. Luffy was well on his way to saving his older brother. Sabo had even smiled in pride. That little brat…actually growing up to try and save Ace. They really have both grown a lot.

But then, now…

Sabo's clicks began to pick up speed.

Page 16, page 17…

Next chapter.

Page 1, page 2…

Kyle and Matt were reaching the climax of their song. Their screams began to blend with the screams Sabo heard in his head, as he played out the Battle of Marineford in his mind. The clash of swords, the smoke of gunshots. Marine soldiers firing at pirates, pirates hacking down marines. The thumping exhilaration of battle. The gnawing pit in his stomach, the flinches every time a blow landed too close.

Luffy.

Ace.

Next chapter.

Page 5, page 6…

All of a sudden, Sabo's hand stilled. His finger halted in midair, frozen above the mouse. A heavy silence settled over his frame, unnoticed by his frenzied classmates.

His eyes lay fixed on the laptop screen.

Then suddenly, he moved his cursor.

The 'back' button.

Gulping down the panic, Sabo went back to the first page of chapter 574. His breath hitched as the page loaded, displaying the title of the chapter proudly at the top of the page.

'Portgas D. Ace Dies.'

Portgas D. Ace…dies.

He began to click furiously again, flying through the pages as fast as they would load. Page 9, page 10, page 11…!

Akainu.

Luffy.

Whitebeard.

…Ace.

Ace.

Sabo clutched the mouse in his hand so hard that the little contraption splintered into pieces. Shattered bits of plastic and metal scattered onto the table. But that wasn't important right now. In Sabo's eyes, he could register nothing but the page in front of him.

Ace, lying…dead. Luffy, crying out in despair. In grief. In pain.

For another dead brother.

"No!" Sabo leapt up, hands slamming down onto the table with such force that the whole thing crashed apart into chunks of wood. The laptop broke in two as it fell to the ground. His friends finally stopped singing, to stare at the destroyed piece of furniture. Their eyes widened as they realized what had happened.

"H-hey, Sabo, did you just…did you just do _that?_"

"…I knew you were strong but, that's just ridiculous! Hey, wait, where are you going? We need to pay for that, you know!"

Ignoring the two, Sabo rushed out of the room without a backward glance. He needed to get back. That was all he could think of right now.

He needed to get back home.

Now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

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At 2 a.m. in the morning, the guard stationed outside the Navy's Scientific Experiment Headquarters of Japan blinked awake at the sound of the buzzing red light.

Oh, buzzing.

That meant someone was requesting entry.

With a lazy yawn, the guard pushed a button next to a big computer and turned on the screen. Through the security cameras, he saw that it was a young man on a motorcycle. A frizzy crop of blond hair stuck out at odd angles from his head, and his face looked flushed under the fluorescent street lights.

"Hm? Hey, it's the prodigy kid."

"What?" the guard's companion also woke with a start. "Who're you calling a kid?"

"You idiot, look."

He pointed at the screen, where the visitor kept swiping his ID card at the entry panel furiously. Even if the visitor had an exclusive ID card, they still needed to be buzzed in by the guards.

"It's the kid that the Navy hired as their Special Ops Naval Strategist a few years back. He's always coming around here to the lab for some reason."

"Ohh, _that_ prodigy? The one that put together the whole plan for…what was it called, Operation Seagull, a few months ago?"

"Yup, that's the one. 19 prisoners of war taken back, with no casualties on our side. Best tactical use of submarines since World War II, I hear."

"So…what's he doing here now?"

The buzzing continued overhead. As long as Sabo kept swiping, the buzzing wouldn't stop.

"…Should we let him in?"

"Of course. The higher-ups gave instructions never to deny him entry."

The first guard pressed the speaker's button and leaned into the microphone. "Alright, kid. We're letting you in."

"Hurry up!" Sabo's panicked tone reverberated from the speakers. "I don't have any weapons on me, so can I bypass the body check? I'm in a real hurry, please!"

"Whoa, whoa, don't hurt yourself," the guard pressed the green 'Allow Entry' button and motioned to his companion. "Hey, go open the gate for him."

The other, grumbling in protest, exited the room into the cold night air. As soon as he was out the door, he saw Sabo standing on the other side of the barred gates. The boy's face, even in this cold weather, looked unnaturally pale.

The guard went over and pressed down on the iron lever. With a click, the gate lock loosened.

"So what brings you here this time of…"

"Thanks!" Sabo slammed the gate back with his foot as he revved up his motorcycle. Before the guard could even protest, both Sabo and his vehicle had zoomed past him and into the lab grounds, kicking up a gale of winds as the latest motorbike model raced towards the main buildings.

"Huh," the guard scratched his head. He'd only met Sabo once before, and he remembered the boy as an easy-going, polite sort of guy. The kid had a pretty good way of leading on conversations without letting the other side feel awkward; most of the socially inept soldiers working in the Navy appreciated Sabo's manners.

"Usually he'd stop and say hi," he mused. "I wonder if something bad's happened."

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Much like the guards at the gate, Ransuki got a rude awakening from where she sat nodding off at her desk. The name panel on her office door read: "Ransuki Tomosuya, Head Director of Special Experimentation Division."

"Tomosuya-san!" Sabo didn't bother to read the sign, nor did he bother to knock. He barged right in, slamming the door open with such force that a little pot of flowers crashed from its precarious perch on a shelf on the wall.

Ransuki jerked up from her swiveling chair with a yelp. "Huh!? What!?"

Sabo pulled her out of the chair by her arm. "You have to open the portal, now!"

"Wha? Sabo-kun?"

"Hurry, come on!"

"Wait, hold on," Ransuki shook her arm in protest. Sabo's grip didn't loosen. The woman shook her arm harder. "Sabo-kun, first let go. Then explain to me properly what is going on. Did I just hear that you want me to open the portal?"

"Yes, it's urgent!" Sabo pursed his lips together tightly. The image of Ace's dying face refused to leave him alone.

He must go back.

Now.

"Sabo-kun," Ransuki shook her head groggily. "You know I can't do that. I've been telling you over and over in the past 4 years you've been working with us. That portal is still much too unstable for you to pass through."

"Yes, I know, but—"

"No, you don't."

She blinked slowly, trying to get her senses together. "You don't understand how dangerous this thing is. You know how long it took me to get permission from the head officers for the go-ahead on this project, don't you? Because of the safety hazards involved while studying it?"

"Yeah, 1 whole year, plus another 4 months of additional paperwork to sign off any liabilities. I know, Tomosuya-san, you've told me many times that the portal is extremely hazardous. But right now I need to…"

"Right now, nothing. In my 3 years of working with this thing, the only thing I've concluded for sure is that _nothing_ is sure about it. It emits 11 times the amount of radioactive substances released by standard nuclear plants. It contains enough energy to build 500 atomic bombs. It constantly changes shape, making all the boys in my division work day and night just to come up with new testing methods…"

"Tomosuya-san!"

She looked at him. For the first time in her life, she saw that the boy looked impatient.

No, downright panicked.

Ransuki had first met him when she visited the Main Branch up in Tokyo 4 years ago. He had been just a middle schooler then, slightly short for his age. Of course, she'd heard about him before. The genius boy who got himself a paid job in the Navy at age 14. Although it was only his 3rd month in service at the time, he'd already made some major contributions to the Naval Battle Strategy Index.

When she introduced herself to him, he'd flashed her a welcome grin. "Specialty division? For scientific experiments? Then can I propose something interesting for you to work on?"

He'd talked about some sort of warp portal in the middle of Tottori Sand Dunes. At first, she'd been skeptical. A portal leading to another dimension? But he'd had such a serious look about him, and other Naval officers had told her that this kid wasn't one to joke around.

So, she'd followed him to the Tottori Sand Dunes.

And witnessed the most amazing sight in her entire life.

Suspended a few feet above the sandy ground, there was a dent in the sky.

A _dent_.

As if the very air bent around that little part in mid-air.

She could hardly believe it—if Sabo hadn't explicitly pointed it out to her, she would never have seen it. Probably would have considered it a trick of the eye—a desert mirage, or something.

But she walked around it once, twice, three times. It stayed there, unblinking. Sabo even jumped through it, almost giving her a heart attack. When his body passed through that space, she saw it. The air contorted into a disfigured shape. A sort of polygon, much clearer to the eye. That was when she'd confirmed for sure that yes, this thing was real. It was strange and wondrous to behold.

But how was Sabo so sure that this phenomenon was a _portal_? Could just be a gravitational mutation or something.

"Secret," he'd grinned at her. "But I'm sure it's a portal. It's closed right now, though, so nobody can pass through it. I think it'd be pretty cool if we could open it and see what's on the other side, no?"

He had her hooked.

The next four years were a series of one experiment after another. Throughout the entire process, even when there was no progress, even if the higher-ups temporarily suspended activities due to one legal excuse or another, Sabo had never faltered. He'd never once complained of the slow progress. He waited patiently, celebrating with her at every milestone in figuring out the science behind the portal, flashing her encouraging smiles and some nice words whenever she felt stumped.

But now, here he was, _demanding_ _entry_ into the portal.

Ransuki sighed. "I can't let you, Sabo-kun. No, I really can't. You know better than I do that we haven't been able to properly open the portal yet."

"Yes, you can! Maria-san told me that you guys managed to bend the portal enough to see some shadows on the other side. That means you've done it, right? You finally got it opened manually!"

That Maria. Ransuki scowled darkly. Her subordinates were a little too attached to this lovable boy, it seemed.

"No still means no, Sabo-kun. Maria probably told you about the after-effects, too, didn't she? 50 times as much toxic energy remitted within 5 minutes of the experiment, than in the last 5 months. If you jumped into the portal during such a state, you'd probably be ripped to pieces from the sheer mass of energy, or be split apart into individual atoms from the force. And that's _if _you manage to get close enough to the portal without burning all your skin off your bones."

Her eyes hardened. "You are not risking such a thing. Just wait a few more weeks, we can get it checked up and…"

"I'm already waiting!"

"…"

"I've _been _waiting! For the past 9 years!" Sabo's voice sounded strangled, frustrated. "Ever since I fell into this place, I've been waiting. Even if the going was slow, I thought I had time. I could see what was going on at the other side, so I took it easy, thinking that eventually, I'd be able to get back. But now. Now I…I can't wait any longer. Something terrible has happened. I know it. If I don't go back now, I'll lose my chance to save them. I have to get back—even now, it may be too late. But I still need to go. I must! Even if I die trying, I need to go through."

She didn't understand what he was talking about. He seemed to have forgotten that he was even talking to her.

But suddenly, his eyes focused back onto her own, and he shouted in desperation.

"Please, you have to let me go through! I know you're the only one who has the key that turns on the machine. Please give it to me!"

"Why are you in such a panic? What's so important about this portal that…"

"Ransuki-san! I need to go _now_!"

Sabo gripped the woman's arms tightly. She winced. For a Naval strategist, this boy had quite a strong grip.

His hands loosened apologetically, but didn't let go. "This is important. If I don't go through now…I, I might as well, just stop living."

Ransuki didn't reply. Was he being serious?

That determined look in his eye, she'd never seen it there before. He'd always been so easy to talk to. So approachable. And now, it felt like he was stepping away from her.

Far, far, away from her.

"Why?" she asked again.

"Ransu…"

"Why do you need to go through this portal? What's on the other side that's so important? You…you know what's there, don't you? That's why you want to go, isn't that right?"

"…" Sabo didn't answer. Instead, he looked down, lowering his gaze to the goggles dangling about his neck.

His jaws clenched shut tightly.

A long silence ensued, interrupted at length by Sabo's whisper: "please."

It sounded hoarse and strained. Ransuki felt like crying.

"Sabo-kun…" she took hold of his wrists and gently lowered them. He fell away without protest.

She stared at him, her eyes searching.

What her eyes found were…a world crashing down on his shoulders. Grief seemed to clog the very pores of his skin.

Something…had definitely happened.

She sighed. A long, heavy sigh.

"You really want to go through with this? Even though there's a 99.8% chance that you'll die?"

His head whipped up. The pleading gaze that bored straight at her – that was the final straw. The adamant director of the Experimentalist division caved in. Somehow, the moment she'd first started working with Sabo on this portal, she'd known this moment would come.

Why else would Sabo want to investigate a portal, if not to try to go through it later?

She had just ignored the boy's blatantly obvious motives, too engrossed in her own scientific endeavors.

"Tomosuya-san…you mean you'll…"

Her long, heavy sigh brightened the expression on Sabo's face. She turned to her desk and unlocked the safe underneath.

"I'll help stimulate the portal for you. I may regret this decision for the rest of my life, but…"

"Thank you, Tomosuya-san! Thank you!" Sabo stepped back and bowed to her, body folding at 90 degrees. He kept bowing, repeating the words 'thank you' like a mantra, as if she would change her mind at any moment.

"…come on."

If she had any thoughts of retracting her words before, the intense joy that burst out of Sabo's lean frame was enough to erase it all. Moments ago, she'd seen him at his most panicked state.

Now, she realized that it was her first time seeing him so happy, too.

As she headed towards the door, Sabo raced ahead of her and out the hallway. She picked up her pace, but stopped when Sabo's voice echoed back towards her: "I've got to go get something. I'll meet you at the lab!"

"Wait, where are you…"

But he was gone.

Fingering the small computer chip in her hand as she walked down the empty hall, Ransuki wondered – what had she gotten herself into? What was she even doing, listening to such a stupid request? It was suicidal. She should never have agreed. But the relief in Sabo's face when she gave in…it made her think that maybe, just maybe, things would turn out all right.

None of the missions Sabo helped plan ever failed.

All the soldiers who worked according to Sabo's special training formula reached stellar marks, and usually went on to become high-ranking officers in the Naval or Military branches.

This time, too, he had a plan. Right?

That's what Ransuki wanted to believe.

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Lab 0010 was a building that had specifically been built for studying the portal, or the "Warp Zone" as the government had labeled it. Since they couldn't really find a way to move the portal, they'd built the lab around and over the thing instead. As Ransuki scanned her ID card onto the entrance panel and typed in her password, the sound of hurried footsteps came up behind her.

"Where have you been, Sabo? What's that backpack?"

She saw a sizable Army backpack—one of those standard ones distributed to all soldiers—on Sabo's back. It wasn't too big. Barely sticking over his shoulders, the pack was firmly tied to his body by a series of crisscrossing buckles over his waist.

"This? I printed out my logbook from the computer lab in Office 657. Your printers really are top-notch, Tomosuya-san. They printed more than 800 pages in less than 2 minutes."

He waved a small computer chip in front of her face. It looked familiar. She recognized it as the one he always carried with him.

"Huh?" Ransuki did a double-take, and eyed the bag again, this time with perplexity. "Why would you need to print that out _now_ of all times? It's your personal journal or something, right?"

"It's the one thing I need to take with me. I hope you don't mind; it's quite a few pages worth of ink here."

"Well, of course I don't mind, but…" things were moving much too quickly. She also realized that Sabo was back to his old self again: well-mannered, easy-going. "I mean, why in the world would you need it?"

Sabo didn't answer. Instead, he gave her an eager smile and ushered her through the open doorway. Inside, at the center of the room, there stood an enormous glass cylinder.

Within the glass, triple-layered and tightly insulated, swirled the portal.

Due to heavy experimentation, the portal looked more like a spinning whirlpool now. Flashes of blue and green emitted from the center, casting eerie glows onto the lab equipment that filled the room.

"I made a promise to them…" Sabo muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing, Tomosuya-san. How long do you think it will take for this thing to open?"

Sabo all but dragged her over to the main monitors. His eyes remained locked on the blue-green swirls at the center of the spacious room.

Lips pursed grimly, Ransuki plugged in the computer chip into the hard drive. The room sprang to life.

Artificial lights, glowing dully against the shimmering portal's radiance, beeped into consciousness. The monitor flickered on, and soon Ransuki was typing away, pressing at various buttons as she ran around this way and that.

She flicked a few switches, pulled some different-sized levers, and began typing strange codes that Sabo couldn't decifer.

"It should take around 5 minutes. I'll open the safety container's entrance 5 seconds before the portal opens. Just jump in…and pray that you don't die."

Her eyebrows furrowed together in worry. This was suicide.

Recognizing her expression, Sabo turned to give her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Tomosuya-san. If it makes you feel any better…I've done this before."

It took a moment for her to register what he meant.

"You…what? You've done this…you've been through this portal before?" Ransuki's voice rose sharply.

Sabo walked over to the stairs leading up to the sealed door halfway up the cylinder.

"It's been almost 5 minutes. I should stand in front of this door, right?"

"Wait, Sabo! What do you mean you've been through this before? Don't tell me…"

"10 seconds to go, Tomosuya-san."

The boy climbed the stairs and stood at the top, looking down at her. He gave her a helpful finger point at the big red button by her side. "Open, please."

He gave her a bright smile.

She searched his expression with her eyes, but could find nothing.

It chilled her. The boy she had worked with, the one she had watched grow up from a kid into a young man, he was going away.

Far away.

And what was worse, it felt _natural._ As if this were how it was meant to be.

The portal began to swirl faster. Faster and faster. Blue and green turned into red and gold. The flashes of light shone brighter.

As if in a trance, Tomosuya Ransuki lifted her hand and gently pressed the red button.

It was okay.

This was _right._

This…was how it was supposed to be all along.

Her glazed eyes glittered from the rainbow of colors reflecting all around. Sabo watched her, the corners of his mouth gently curving up.

Things would finally fall back into place.

The door in front of Sabo slid open. He gave her one last grin, and said, "Thank you, Tomosuya-san. For everything."

Without any hesitation, he stepped off the platform and into the portal. The whirlpool of colors spewed out in all directions, threatening to burst out of its artificial container. In the very center, dominant and brilliant above all the rest, there flashed a shade of pure, deep blue.

"Good-bye."

_Flash!_

It was a full 5 minutes later, that Ransuki realized it.

Sabo was gone.

And so was the portal.

Both had disappeared without a trace, leaving the lab room bare and empty, except for a dazed woman and a bleeping monitor reading: "Success."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

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9 years ago, when the visiting Tennryubito shot his little boat into pieces, Sabo had been sure he had met his death. The relentless ocean waters had closed over his head, blocking the air from his lungs. Darkness, cold. He had reached out, vainly, for anything to hold onto, but burning pieces of plankwood crumbled under his desperate fingers as he sank deeper into oblivion. Faint laughter, mocking and nasally, had echoed in his ears.

And just before his consciousness gave out, a bright light had reached up from below, engulfing him in a strange warmth. His last thought was an apology.

_Sorry I couldn't keep my promise._

They say that your life flashes before you in your last moments, but not for Sabo. All he could recall were the smiling faces of his brothers. What sort of reckless trouble would they get into without him around…

To his absolute astonishment, the next time his eyes blinked open, he found himself sprawled in the middle of a desert. A hot noontide sun beat down on him. No body of water lay in sight for miles around, immediately crossing out the possibility of having miraculously survived and washed up on shore.

Besides, none of the islands anywhere near Fuschia Island had deserts on them.

As he sat up, grains of sand falling from his hair, a bright spectrum of lights disturbed his vision. He looked up.

In the middle of the sky above his head, there swirled a strange pattern of lights. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. Not even the brightest colors in his mother's dressing room could match up to the rainbow of shimmering lights in the air. Sabo couldn't help but stare at it, hypnotized. But then he snapped out of it with a start, and his eyes widened as he saw something in the middle of the circling lights.

A deep blue ocean, and an island. The Kingdom of Goa, with columns of smoke rising into the air. An extravagant ship lay docked at the shore of the island, undoubtedly the very same one that had sunk Sabo's ship.

But it was hard to make out. The vision within the halo was quickly shrinking, blurring the edges of the scene. Red, green, yellow, purple flashed violently. The blue waves shrunk further, into nothing but a small little dot in the middle of a torrent of fantastic shades.

Sabo leapt for the hole. Just a fraction of a second before his outstretched finger touched the blue, it disappeared completely, replaced by a vibrant neon yellow. He fell out of the other side, tumbling on the hot sand.

Scrabbling up, he gave a hoarse cry, and dived back towards the lights.

Over and over, for hours, until night fell and then the sun rose again, Sabo jumped through those swirling lights.

Refusing to believe what his eyes had seen, Sabo kept leaping. Clawing at the bit of air that separated him from his home. Beyond the devastation of the island, beyond the remains of his tiny little boat, he sensed that his brothers were there, without him. Just the two of them.

Tears streamed unchecked down Sabo's face.

Soon, he was bawling outright, for the first time in his life, as the sun set over the horizon.

Though he felt weak from dehydration, and the heat made him feel light-headed, Sabo didn't try to stop the racking sobs from escaping his throat.

This place was strange. He didn't belong here.

When an old married couple riding in a jeep stopped nearby, ran up to him, and asked him what a boy like him was doing out here, he just cried even harder.

This wasn't his world.

Where are you, my brothers?

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It took him a few months at the orphanage to realize the full extent of what had happened to him.

The map of this world looked unfamiliar.

The sights and sounds of the city were unlike anything he had ever seen, in real life or in books.

He kept asking the orphanage's manager about the Kingdom of Goa, or the Red Line, the East Blue, anything that was familiar to him. The manager just shook his head, and instead sent Sabo to a therapist that came to visit every year as part of a charity organization. The therapist dubbed Sabo a case of "hallucination incurred by exposure to extreme weather conditions."

He scoffed at that, and decided not to press the matter any further.

When they realized that he really didn't have anywhere else to go, they enrolled him in elementary school. They figured it would stop him from trying to run away and go back to the Tottori Sand Dunes, where he had first been found by a retired couple out on a leisurely road trip across Japan a few months back. He was always trying to sneak back there. The adults had no idea why. But they knew that if he kept up his unruly behavior, they had every right to kick him out onto the streets.

He wouldn't have minded if they kicked him out, but he soon realized that "school" was a learning facility, that taught him things he needed to know about this world.

So he went along with them. He got to know some of the "teachers" who worked there, and killed his temper, in an effort to get in their good graces.

As a result, despite having previously no schooling whatsoever, he only got held back one year. And when he expressed interest in the Navy, the school board contacted the Navy's Young Talent Scholarship program and got Sabo hooked up.

If there was one thing Sabo knew how to do, it was a battle on the sea.

That, and a bit of navigation here and there.

If he had stayed with Ace, surely he would have become the older boy's navigator and battle strategist. It would have been such fun. Such adventures they would have had…

So he utilized what brains he had, and even read up on some of the Naval Strategy books in this world, finding that a lot of it was quite advanced compared to the ones back home.

He got himself recognized, and when his spotlight was bright enough, he approached one of the scientists and proposed a plan.

A portal that radiates mysterious energies. Tempting, no?

And then, all he had to do was settle down and wait.

Wait for the technology of this world to force open the portal. Wait for the report that would declare the portal ready and accessible. When they finally succeeded, that would be the day he would be able to return. The discovery of the manga series of _One Piece_ made the waiting infinitely better.

The mystery of how his own world ended up in a comic book baffled him, but Sabo was glad…of _any_ chance to glimpse the lives of his brothers after he had disappeared.

He still remembered his shock when he first saw volume 1 of _One Piece._

'_Luffy!?'_

To think that out of the three of them, it would be little, crybaby Luffy who would become the main character of their story. Who would have guessed it?

He had laughed fit to burst at that.

How Ace would blow his fuse. How Dadan would screech in unbridled horror that the little devil was actually the most important figure in their world.

Sabo laughed along with Luffy in his adventures, cheered every time he gained a new nakama, and broiled with indignation right alongside Luffy as their youngest brother took on bigger and stronger enemies. Stranded in this strange world, by himself, the manga offered Sabo the tiniest bit of consolation.

At least, he could keep up with them, through these books.

And when Ace had first appeared on Drum Island…

Even with a cloak covering his face, even if he was a 2-dimensional character on the pages of a manga, Sabo recognized him instantly.

And couldn't believe his eyes. He was so…polite. So well-mannered and soft-spoken. Sure, the tendency to fall asleep over his food had stayed well into adulthood, but…wow.

Unlike Luffy, who hadn't changed a bit, Ace almost seemed like a different person. Not surly, and brooding, and angry at the world, like he used to be.

But it was still Ace.

And now, he had just read a chapter that Ace had died, at the hands of a Marine Admiral.

"It may be too late even now but…!" Searing hot burns streaked across his skin. Speckles of white hot light flooded his vision, and the wind rushing past him took his breath away. He couldn't see anything, but he felt like he was falling, down, down, down.

"I'm coming for you, Ace!"

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"Zehahahahaha, and just who might you be, young man?"

"…"

He didn't know what he had been expecting. But it certainly wasn't this.

Sabo pursed his lips grimly as he looked at the man standing in front of him: Marshall D. Teach, the man responsible for Ace's capture and death.

Otherwise known as 'Blackbeard.'


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:**Thank you to everyone who reviewed and favorited! You're all beautiful! :D

So here's the next chapter...updates will be fast, hopefully.

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**Chapter 4**

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Blackbeard scanned the blond-haired, lanky boy in front of him.

Where had this guy popped out from?

"Are you a prisoner here in Level 6, too? I've never seen your face in the news…"

"Maybe he has been 'erased' from history," one of his crew members supplied helpfully.

"Zehahahaha, that could be true!" Blackbeard gave a hearty laugh, giving a quick glance at the cells all around him. He had yet to unlock any of them; he was still in the middle of watching the prisoners slaughter each other in an effort to join his crew.

Such a wonderful sight. All these powerful, dangerous men, tearing each other apart like ravenous wolves, and the most powerful of them all to become Blackbeard's loyal subordinate.

Oh, yes. It pleased him, very much.

Sabo's eyes flickered this way and that, taking in the sights that just hours ago, he had seen through his laptop screen. Dark, mossy prison walls stretched up impossibly high. Equally impressive iron bars locked in some of the most dangerous men in the world. And before him, stood Blackbeard, currently in the middle of a bloody and violent recruitment process.

Why of all places, had he been dropped here?

Conflicting emotions warred inside him. His immediate reaction on seeing the inside of Impel Down Level 6, with Blackbeard still inside, had been a sigh of relief.

He wasn't too late.

He had come before the death of Ace.

He still had a chance.

But at the same time, _this _was definitely _not _where he wanted to be at the moment.

Unconsciously, Sabo clenched his fists in frustration. If only he had landed half-an-hour ago! He might have run into Luffy!

Blackbeard narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Whoever this new boy was, he wasn't a normal guy. The fact that no one had noticed his presence until he dropped down in the midst of the Blackbeard crew was enough to make them wary. The sniper of their crew – Van Augur – discreetly unlocked the safety hold of his rifle.

Come to think of it, even now, Blackbeard still couldn't sense the boy's presence.

"Who are you, boy?" he asked again. "Answer me."

His hand began to flicker with black. Soft spots of pure darkness slowly gathered at his fingers.

Sabo, without lifting his head, glanced up at Blackbeard, then at the dangerous hand.

In a split second, Sabo created a new plan. Code name: ignore everything else, just get to Ace as fast as you can.

"My name is Sabo," he began evenly, holding up his hands in a gesture of harmless surrender. "And I'd like to join your crew."

"Would you now? Zehahahahaha! Well, then, how about I throw you into one of these cages, and if you can kill every other prisoner in there, you'll earn the right to join my crew. How about it, eh?"

What an evil man.

Sabo gritted his teeth, trying not the let the blazing anger show on his face. Even now, the horrific screams of the murdered and the maniac laughter of the murderers continued to fill the air. He wanted no part in that.

"I'd rather not do that."

"No? Zehahahaha, then perhaps you'd prefer a violent and bloody death instead?" Blackbeard turned casually to his tall and skinny navigator – Laffitte. "What do you say to having this boy to yourself, Laffitte? Zehahahaha."

The man in question twirled his cane fluidly, and a mad smile took over his features. "Anything to kill some time, captain."

"Wait," Sabo began again.

But Laffitte wasn't listening. With a final tap-tap of his heels, the man launched himself at Sabo, his cane aimed straight for the boy's neck. Sabo sidestepped it, and as Laffitte's cane thrust past his cheek, Sabo grabbed it in one swift motion.

"Hm?"

In a deft movement, Sabo twisted the cane out of Laffitte's grasp and flicked it into one of the prison rooms. The sight of his cane twirling away from him gave Laffitte a pause. He turned a slightly deranged stare back at Sabo, and suddenly kicked out with his foot. The steel glint of the man's heels aimed for Sabo, again the neck, but this was also dodged fluidly. In a series of deliberate steps, Sabo took Laffitte's back. The other man swung around in a blur, this time with a small razor knife held in his hand. At that moment, Sabo's eyes clearly marked out the spot on Laffitte's neck that would have knocked the man neatly unconscious. Laffitte's speed, unbelievably fluid and fast, was still slower than a supersonic bullet –one of the primary form of weaponries Sabo had faced back in the 'other' world.

Though not everyone in the 'other' world knew it, Sabo hadn't just been a desk-bound Strategist for the Navy. He'd also been a top-grade Special Operations Agent.

His job?

Front line duties on undercover missions – ones that required stealth, secrecy, and flawless execution of difficult plans.

There were never too many of these missions, but the few that Sabo had led…had never failed.

Blackbeard and the rest looked on, amused, as Sabo sidled backwards, out of attack range. It was a clear sign of retreat. He held up his hands again calmly.

"Wait," Sabo repeated. He recalled what he knew about this pirate crew. "Don't you think this is fate?"

That got their attention.

Laffitte began a slow tap dance in a thoughtful manner, twirling the razor through his fingers as he contemplated the younger man in front of them. The strange boy clearly knew who they were, but didn't seem at all panicked or fearful. In fact, he was saying something very interesting…

The others glanced at their captain. Sure enough, Blackbeard seemed to be fascinated by Sabo's suggestion.

"Fate, you say?"

"Yes. I threw myself into a strange portal, expecting to find somebody I know. Instead, I find that I am before one of the strongest pirates in the world. If this is not fate – then may I ask, what is?"

Silence.

At length, Blackbeard gave another hearty laugh, this one genuinely pleased. "Zehahahahahaha! This is true! Such strange and wondrous ways the world works! So you find this to be fate, eh? Very well then! I'll make an exception for you, since it is not I that found you, but you that found me. Welcome to the crew, Sabo!"

The other crew members, though startled, seemed used to their captain's wims, and didn't voice any complaints and Blackbeard walked over and gave Sabo a hearty clap on the back. Sabo grimaced, trying not to show his disgust at the man in front of him.

Until he reached Marineford…this man would have to do.

"Well now…" Blackbeard gave a good look around him. "Everyone seems to have finished up around here. If there's nothing left, then shall we head out? Set the winners free, boys – our next stop is Marineford!"

A rumble of approval came from the four powerful figures that stood behind bars. Behind them, in their prison rooms, there lay a bloody mess. Averting his eyes, Sabo reached up to make sure his goggles were still around his neck. He rubbed his fingers over the frayed edges.

The sound of unlocking doors, of gates slowly swinging open, echoed especially loudly in the quiet area. Blackbeard strutted forward, arms spread wide, welcoming his newest crewmates with a loud laugh.

"Zehahahahaha, welcome to the Blackbeard pirates!"

If Sabo recalled correctly, these four prisoners were Sanjuan Wolf, Vasco Shot, Catarina Devon, and Avalo Pizarro.

They each appeared none the worse for wear from their bloody slaughtering games just moments before. Inwardly, Sabo seethed at the nonchalance with which everyone here treated this whole situation.

Outwardly, he just fingered his goggles one last time, before following Blackbeard and his crew towards the exit sign.

On the way, he asked Van Augur if the man could shoot some bullets at a certain steel bar that enclosed one of the prison rooms.

"Why should I waste my bullets shooting at prison bars?" the man replied coldly.

The corner of Sabo's mouth tilted up. "Intimidation?"

He gave a glance at the new recruits of the Blackbeard pirates meaningfully. The taller man didn't give a reply, but seemed to follow Sabo's eyes in a contemplative manner, eyeing the former prisoners who had sauntered ahead.

"Why shouldn't you use a few bullets to set some order around here?" Sabo added, choosing his words carefully.

"…"

_Bang! Bang!_

"That should do it," Van Augur spat out. He went over and joined the rest, who had looked back briefly at the sound. With a small smile of satisfaction, Sabo went over and picked up the steel bar that the sniper had kindly removed from its place.

He hefted it experimentally. Twirling it a few times, Sabo nodded in approval at the makeshift weapon in his hands, taller even than his own height.

His staff back in the 'other' world had been heavier.

Ah, well, he couldn't complain now.

He ran to catch up with Blackbeard and the rest, his mind already jumping to the next step of his crude plan. This would be the most important mission he had ever undergone.

He just hoped his zero-failure streak would hold up.

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As a Shichibukai, Blackbeard easily passed through the Gates of Justice, and he had their ship on the currents of the Tarai Triangle within an hour. There was no need for navigation; Sabo noted absentmindedly that the waves and the winds only flowed in one direction.

No wonder this world had been conceptualized as a 'manga.' The laws of nature here bent in ways that the 'other' world could never understand.

"So! Sabo, was it?" Blackbeard came sauntering up to him, a piece of half-eaten pie clutched in his hand. "Where will your destiny lead you today?"

"To the Whitebeard War," he replied without hesitation.

"Zehahaha, I know that much! The moment you joined us, that fate was sealed! The question I'm asking is, what sort of fate will be waiting for you there? Which dream will be played out for you, eh?"

The next Gate of Justice was approaching. Laffitte signaled for the crew to prepare to sail off the circulating currents, and into the opening gates. Sabo gripped the pole in his hand, staring at the metal as he went over his plan of action, one final time.

"My dream…is to reunite with my brothers," Sabo told him.

There was no need to hide it.

His brothers were his pride and joy. Even Blackbeard – _especially _Blackbeard – needed to know this.

"So don't interfere," Sabo hardened his gaze, erasing the faint smile he had been maintaining until now.

The grin on Blackbeard's face froze ever so slightly. But in the next moment, he was laughing his head off again, and wandered off, shaking his head in consternation.

Sabo just gazed straight ahead, at the Gates that they were approaching. He felt his heartbeat quicken. Whether from apprehension, or nervousness, or anticipation, he couldn't tell, but the clash of emotions in his mind as he stood there, immobile, threatened to overwhelm him.

How long had it been since he had felt this way?

Not since that day, 9 years ago, when he had walked away from Ace and Luffy for the sake of their happiness.

That time, he had left them behind, mistakenly believing it to be for their own good.

Today, he would find them again.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** ...well, it's been a while since I read through the Marineford Arc, and I just realized that somewhere in the middle, the Moby Dick gets burned, correct?

Totally forgot. So...here's how I'll do it.

**The Moby Dick is in perfect condition and it never gets burned in my fanfic, unlike in the manga.**

That's how I'll do it, because I don't really feel like changing the story now. And if, in future chapters, there are other plot holes I fail to spot, I apologize in advance, and hope nobody flames me. ^^

Now then, onward Sabo!

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**Chapter 5**

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A few minutes later, the ship had made it past the Gate without much interference. The sea was heaving, waves swelling up unusually high. Sabo wondered if the violent sea surface had anything to do with the quakes being caused by Whitebeard over at Marineford.

As he leaned against the rails, scanning the distant horizon, a shout from the crow's nest alerted everyone. "There it is, I see it! Marineford!"

It only took a few more moments for the pirates on deck to spot the dark patch of land as well. Sabo narrowed his eyes. So that was it. Marineford, the center of the conflict between the Whitebeard pirates and Marine HQ. The place of Ace's execution, and his death.

No, Sabo shook his head.

Not his death. Not while Sabo was around.

Never having felt so nervous in his life, he placed a hand on his chest in an effort to ease the tightness forming in his ribs. For the first time, as the splotch of land slowly got larger, Sabo contemplated how his brothers would react to his return.

He had no doubt that they would be happy to see him back. Just as happy as Sabo would be to see them again.

But what could he say to them…as an excuse for his absence, this past decade? He had disappeared from their lives without a word, scarring them with painful memories, no doubt, and now he was suddenly showing up in their lives again, as if he had never been gone.

Could he just leap back into their lives again like that?

Did he have a right to interfere, when they might finally have managed to forget about him?

He didn't know.

He couldn't know.

All he knew was…

"That's my stop," Sabo told them.

"Hm?" the others turned to look oddly at him, then at Marineford. It was still quite a distance away, though they could begin to make out the buildings and the explosions of battle. Then they saw that Sabo was pointing in another direction, slightly to the left of their destination.

Ignoring their confusion, Sabo went over and began to untie the emergency life boat that lay upside down on the deck. He planned to use this to get to the next – and crucial – destination.

"An iceberg?"

"No, captain," Liffette corrected. "Look closely. It's a gigantic wave that's been frozen mid-way."

"It's more than likely the work of that Aokiji," another joined in.

"That's," Sabo spoke up as he untied the last of the ropes, "_my _destination. I'll head to Marineford as soon as I take care of some business over there."

Laying aside his staff, Sabo heaved the boat over the rails with a grunt. There was a splash as the boat landed upright in the waters, and as the others watched incredulously, Sabo looked around at them and waved a cheery good-bye.

"Well then, I'm off to change destiny."

Sayonara, crap-faces, he added inwardly.

Grabbing his staff, Sabo easily leapt over the rails after the boat before anybody could question him, or protest his sudden abandonment of the ship. What sort of business could anybody have on that chunk of ice, anyway? Liffette had been purposely skirting around that huge block because it had been in their pathway to Marineford.

Blackbeard swallowed the last of his pie, and stared at the boy rowing his boat further and further away. He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. A slow suspicion began to creep into his gaze, but nobody really noticed as they lost interest in the boy.

One by one, they all turned back to look at Marineford, as it loomed ever closer.

Meanwhile, Sabo was realizing that Laffitte had skirted around the iceberg more thoroughly than he had originally thought. He was sweating a bit, and his arms felt a bit tired. Maybe he was halfway there?

He sighed, knowing that hard labor wasn't one of his strong points. Ace had the one up on Sabo when it came to brute strength.

It accounted for the 26 losses versus 24 wins that usually fell to Sabo's lot during their sparring matches.

"What a monster he'd be by now, with fire spewing out of those monster fists," Sabo grinned. It was hard to gauge strength based only on comic strips. He wondered how much Ace had really grown over the past 9 years. And Luffy, too. That boy seemed to have gotten just a bit smarter, the way he had fought Crocodile in Alabasta.

"Still just as stupid and reckless, though."

He chuckled to himself, reminiscing of the times they had worked on his gomu gomu no pistol move together. The kid had never been able to get it right.

_Bump._

"Hm? Oh," Sabo grabbed his backpack and leapt off the boat onto solid ice, taking in the landscape before him. It really looked more like an iceberg that anything, but the steep slope of a frozen tidal wave told of something more.

It was Aokiji's work, just as Sabo remembered it from the comic book. When Luffy and his temporary allies got stuck at the top of the mountain of ice, they had broken off the edge of it, slid down the slope at breakneck speed, and flew off into space – managing to land right in the middle of the Whitebeard War.

Sabo grinned, and broke into a jog as he headed towards the frozen crescent wave.

It was slippery going. The slope was steeper than he imagined, and the icy surface didn't make footholds very easy. After some struggling, Sabo decided to just jump from one crack in the ice to the next, rather than follow standard mountain climbing procedures.

"And…oof! Made it!" he finally got his foot onto the very peak of the ice. He slipped once, felt his body tilting precariously backwards, before righting himself once again by flailing his arms wildly.

Almost instinctively, he glanced around, making sure no one had seen that.

"OK, then…" he stepped nonchalantly over to the far end of the frozen tsunami, looking out over the view. Some distance away, he could see part of the Marine HQ from the left. The natural barriers forming the bay blocked most of the view, so he couldn't tell how the battle was playing out. Sabo narrowed his eyes, trying to spot Ace or Luffy anywhere.

But nope. The huge walls – the ones erected by the marines to stop the pirates' progress – kept the execution platform out of sight. A grunt of frustration escaped Sabo's throat.

"I can't see what's going on," he frowned. His mind raced furiously as he glanced down at the ice below his feet, then peaked over the edge down at the dizzying drop below. If he looked closely, he could see the trail of something huge that had previously slid down this slope, most likely at a terrifying speed.

Trust Luffy to do something crazy like that.

And what's wrong with crazy plans, anyhow?

Sabo stepped gingerly over to the section of the ice that looked partially cracked and crumbling. No doubt, this was where the huge chunk of ice had broken off, carrying Luffy and the others all the way through the air, right above the battle of Marineford. If Sabo remembered correctly, they had landed somewhere near the Moby Dick.

So…

Following the imaginary trail of the ship, Sabo traced his fingers down the icy slide, up into the air, and far out onto the island. "Bingo."

He could just see the white stern of the huge ship poking out above the slope. And next to it, amid the chaotic clashes of gun, smoke, and swords, there sat the ruins of a marine ship, shattered in neat pieces from its headlong descent. Pirates were swarming all over it, but none of them were worth noting. Sabo scanned the island for any signs of his little brother, or at least that Whitebeard guy, so that he could begin to calculate his trajectory.

Ah, there.

It was a good thing Ace's captain was so tall – Sabo spotted him almost as soon as he started looking for the old man. He looked intimidating, for sure. Small wonder that even Ace, the ever stubborn one, had allowed Whitebeard to put his mark on Ace's back. The old man was shouting something to his crew, but Sabo was too far away to hear what he was saying.

But this was no time to wonder about that.

"Now that I know where Whitebeard will be standing," Sabo began using his pole to smash the ice below his feet. "I have a fairly good idea of where Ace and Luffy will be at the moment that they confront Akainu. And judging from the previous landing point of Luffy's ship, I just need to follow this trail, only slightly to the left…"

All of a sudden, a bright red flare bloomed out of the battlefield. Sabo snapped his head up, eyes widening as an unmistakable tunnel of flames appeared above the island. Even as far away as he was, the ecstatic cheers of the Whitebeard allies threatened to deafen his ears.

"Ace is free!"

Sabo stared.

In the midst of the flames, wearing a pair of identical stupid grins, emerged Ace and Luffy. He had just watched them go through this very same scene, just hours ago, on his laptop. But seeing them, in the flesh, even if they were still far away.

A tear rolled down Sabo's cheek. Unnoticed and forgotten, it slipped off his chin and melted into the ice. Sabo gave a shuddering sigh.

And began to spear his staff into the ice at a faster rate. He had to get this chunk of ice loose, and fast. Time was running out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

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"Ace! Luffy!" Sabo shouted desperately, knowing that they couldn't hear him anyways. He was on a hunk of ice far away from them; still couldn't stop himself from yelling at their stupidity, though. "Don't let that Akainu bait you! Run back to the ship!"

Even as he shouted uselessly, Sabo was just about done loosening up a fairly big chunk of ice from the ledge. Almost as big as Blackbeard himself, this piece of ice would be Sabo's one-way ticket, straight to Marineford. He had to be careful, not to make it too small, or else he wouldn't be able to use it later on.

Damn it! He couldn't tell what was really happening down there! Had Akainu shouted his insult at Whitebeard yet? Was Luffy about to get killed? Why wasn't this piece of ice loosening any faster…!

_Crack._

"Eh?"

Before Sabo had time to register the sound, the pit of his stomach leapt up to his mouth as the ice gave way below him, plunging at a 90 degree angle straight down the frozen slide. "UaaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Almost immediately, he slipped off the frozen surface and disconnected with the falling piece of ice. He felt himself going airborne. Wait, no, no, no. He had to land on Marineford _with _the ice cube!

With energy born from frantic desperation, he speared his pole smack into the middle of the ice. The tip dug in deep, and Sabo clung onto his staff for dear life – the only thing anchoring him to the roller coaster ice as it descended wildly towards the sea.

"This was a stupid ideaaaaAAAAA!"

And he was airborne. Both him, and the chunk of ice he had carefully carved out of the tidal wave, swerved off the edge of the tidal wave beautifully, drawing a perfect arc in the air. Now his stomach had dropped into his feet. He felt partially sick already.

But even in his dizziness, he glanced down and noted with pride that he had slid off at the exact point he had been aiming for. Close to Luffy's trail, just a little to the left.

Now, as gravity worked its magic, Sabo found that the Battle of Marineford was approaching him at an alarming rate. Figures that had been little dots now turned into human shapes. Vague explosions sounds turned into bullets he could see. The shadows dotting the sea solidified into the shape of pirate ships, each with its own flag.

Whitebeard's form loomed ever larger.

And smack in the middle of the bay, tumbled over from a previous blow, sat Luffy. The foreboding figure of Marine Admiral Akainu loomed over him, fist formed into a boiling mass of lava ready to dash the life out of the exhausted boy. As if watching a roll of film, Sabo saw Ace make a mad dash to save the Straw Hat boy.

"Not my brothers, Akainu you *******!" Sabo yelled out vehemently.

As the rest of the Whitebeard pirates looked on, horrified, a huge block of ice came sailing out of nowhere, crashing straight down onto Akainu.

For a few moments, a shocked silence settled over the battlefield. Akainu, who heard the unfamiliar voice shouting out his name from above, had instinctively liquefied. It was a good thing, too, because just seconds later he felt a huge weight crash onto his head.

The sound of sizzling and melting filled the air, as the big piece of ice quickly began to melt in a puddle of lava.

Slowly, in a deliberate motion, the lava slid to the right and reassembled into the Marine Admiral. The tall man slit his eyes dangerously. Who, or what, dared interrupt this golden opportunity to eliminate the son of Gol D. Roger?

"…Who the hell is that?" Marco questioned, eyeing the figure crouched on top of the ice. The man was pretty tall, with messy blond hair and a pair of beat-up goggles around his neck. A huge backpack was on his back, and he had a staff in his hand, one end of it stuck into the piece of ice that had just saved Luffy and Ace.

Whoever it was, it had been a close one.

Ace grabbed Luffy by his shoulders, asking in a panic, "Hey, Luffy, you okay? Not hurt anywhere?"

But Luffy didn't answer. He was too busy staring at the big block of white that had filled his vision. Or, more specifically, the man standing on top of it, and the goggles hanging from his neck.

"Eh…?" Luffy muttered stupidly.

Ace, satisfied that his little brother seemed well enough, also turned to the man that had just helped them out.

He froze.

"…huh?" he mumbled, sounding just as idiotic as Luffy.

Sabo glanced down at them, the brothers he hadn't seen in so long. The ones he had been longing to see, face-to-face, for every moment of his life in the past nine years. They were both staring up at him, the same, stupid expressions plastered on their faces, with eyes wide and mouths hanging loose.

He couldn't help it; Sabo burst out laughing.

If his grand entrance just moments before wasn't enough, the sound of his breathless laughter now drew everyone's attention to him. As marines and pirates alike stared at the stranger, he began to lean against his staff, clutching his stomach as he laughed, harder and harder.

He took a peek at his 2 audience members. Yup, they still looked pretty dumbfounded. Sabo burst out into fresh peals of laughter.

Only when Akainu aimed a lava punch at him did he stop. Yanking his staff out deftly, Sabo swung to the side and dodged Akainu's attack. Making a quick calculation, Sabo gave the block of ice a solid kick, sending it skidding into the Marine Admiral. In the split second it took Akainu to sidestep the oncoming projectile (?), Sabo kicked rubber boy Luffy out of range and grabbed Ace's arm, hauling the speechless man back towards the Moby Dick.

"Come on, guys. We gotta run!" Sabo yelled at them, galvanizing Ace out of his shock.

"Sabo…?" Ace stumbled, then righted himself and yanked his arm out of Sabo's grip. Then he clutched Sabo's shoulder and whipped him around to face him. Sabo returned his bewildered gaze with as calm a stare as he could muster up.

It was pretty tough.

"Come on, Ace. I'm not letting you die here and leave our little brother all alone."

"Sabo?"

"…Just forget about what that Akainu said. It's not worth your life," Sabo tried again. "You gonna be an idiot brother who just ups and leaves his little bro like this? Don't be stupid like me – you're old enough to know by now. It's the people who are left behind, who hurt the most."

"You…"

A deep-throated growl from Akainu warned Sabo, and he had just enough time to snag Ace's neck and roll to the right, barely dodging a splatter of lava. For a big guy, that Marine Admiral was much too fast. Sabo, without thinking twice about it, swung a wide kick into Ace's chest. It connected solidly – weak from hunger and fatigue, as well as in shock, Ace flew another 15 feet away in the direction Sabo kicked him.

They were inching ever closer to the Moby Dick, but it wasn't fast enough.

Feeling that same tight squeeze in his ribcage again, and sensing Akainu's burning glare on his back, Sabo dashed towards where Ace had fallen, grabbing Luffy's rubbery arm on the way and pulling him along. "Come on Luffy!...Ace! Snap out of it! We need to get out of here!"

"…"

Sabo hadn't thought Ace would just blank out like this. There was no time! Sabo had managed to avert Ace's death once; he wasn't about to risk it again. "You over there, phoenix!"

"Huh? Me?" Marco blinked, still trying to figure out who this guy was and why he was helping them. Did Ace know him? Maybe another one of that Luffy's friends?

Sabo jerked his chin at Ace's prone form. "Grab Ace and let's get out of here, if you want to bring your 2nd division commander out of this alive!"

"…Pops?" Marco turned to Whitebeard, raising an eyebrow in question.

Whitebeard, having looked on at the scene in grim silence, finally nodded assent. "Our priority is rescuing Ace. Old grudges and new ones with the marines…today is not the day to settle them."

_Slam!_

The gigantic man slammed his weapon down onto the ground. A huge earthquake shook the very foundations of the island, and before everyone's eyes, a huge crack appeared in the ground, splitting the island in two. The wide chasm gaped slowly wider. As astonished marines and pirates watched, Whitebeard swung his weapon again, this time to clear off 20 marine officers at once, flinging them onto the other side of the rift.

A bottomless ridge now separated the pirates from the Marine Headquarters.

Whitebeard's formidable voice boomed out over the area. "All units retreat! Support Marco and Luffy in getting Ace back to the ship! I," the island shook once more under his powers, "will carve the way."

The strongest man in the world glared at the marines, as if daring them to pursue the retreating wave of pirates. Some took him on – promptly getting knocked back 100 feet into the solid wall behind them. Akainu, letting out an enraged yell, flew towards the retreating backs of Luffy and Sabo, only to be stopped by Whitebeard, who suddenly appeared in front of him, a new quake in hand.

_Boom!_

As lava clashed with sonic boom, Marco morphed into a blue-flamed bird and flew over to Ace, not really sure why Fire Fist was just sitting there, staring at the stranger who had flown in out of nowhere.

"Hey, Ace, come on!" Marco changed back into his human form and hauled Ace upright. He felt no resistance, and noted that Ace kept his eyes fixed on Luffy and his companion. "Ace! Pops has called a retreat. We're heading back to the ship!"

"It's Sabo…"

"Huh?" Marco leaned in, not sure what Ace had whispered.

"It's…"

_Whack!_

A blow from Sabo's staff sent Ace flying backwards, into the arms of his comrades. They caught him hurriedly, gaping at the man who had hit their 2nd division commander. Paying them no heed, Sabo just waved them off. "Go on, hurry up. You too, phoenix. If we don't hurry, Ace will really die."

"What…"

"He'll die," Sabo repeated, as he looked the other man straight in the face. "So get a move on, alright?"

"That…" the man was serious. Marco's mouth turned grim, and he nodded. "It's all units retreat. Are you on our side?"

As they made their way back towards the Moby Dick, where more of the pirates were gathering, Sabo glanced at Marco, then at the boy at their side. Luffy still stared at his goggles, eyes dull, being dragged along quite helplessly by the taller man.

"…I was hoping Ace or Luffy would testify to that. But they're not exactly cooperating. Hey, Luffy?"

Sabo shook the boy's arm gently. Then, a little harder. "Luffy, snap out of it. Where'd all your battle spirit go?"

No response.

Sabo gave a big sigh. Then, turning his face squarely to Luffy, he gave the boy the biggest grin he could muster. "Gonna let Ace beat us back to the ship?"

"_Gonna let Ace beat us back to base?"_

"_No way! The future pirate king never loses in a race!"_

"No…" Luffy mumbled. "No, Sabo…"

"Yeah," he replied gently. "So let's hurry so that we can—"

"Sabo. Sabo!"

"Wait, Luffy,"

"_Hey, Luffy, wait up! Ace, slow down, will you?"_

"_Get a move on, Sabo!"_

"Sabo! SABOOOOOOO!"

And suddenly, Sabo realized with a start that tears were welling up in the younger boy's eyes. Without any regard for the situation, without even caring about the urgency of that moment, Luffy launched himself at his older brother, wrapping his arms tightly around the other in a squeezing embrace. Sabo fell against Marco from the sudden weight – Marco just managed to keep his balance so that all three of them stayed upright.

"Sabo! SABO! You're alive! You're alive! You're alive, Sabo! You're alive!"

"L-Luffy…"

"You're alive! You're alive! I knew it, I knew that you didn't die!"

"…"

"Ace! Ace, look!" Luffy was suddenly alive again. His eyes were sparkling, whether from the unshed tears or the newly regained joy, Sabo couldn't really tell. He found himself being dragged forward by Luffy at an unbelievable speed, whereas just moments before _he _had been trying to coax the boy into getting a _move on, please_. Marco, now visibly perplexed, raced after them as Luffy practically shoved Sabo in front of Ace's blank face.

"It's Sabo, Ace! Sabo is alive! He came to save you, Ace!" Luffy laughed, jumping onto Sabo's back and wrapping his arms around him again. "I knew that Sabo survived. He wouldn't die and leave us behind! Sabo's come back, Ace!"

"…"

"Ace?"

Luffy looked up at Ace curiously. Fire Fist still showed no sign of responding. At length, Sabo began to nudge Ace's leg with his foot. "Get it together, Ace. This is no time to lose it, alright? I'll explain everything later on the ship, so first…"

Sabo looked up at the various commanders of the Whitebeard pirates, who watched Sabo and Ace's exchange with wary eyes. With a sigh, Sabo pointed at them and asked, "can I get on your boat without getting bullets shot through me? I'm not a fruit user like you guys. I'll die if that guy shoots a gun at me."

Sabo pointedly looked at Izou, who had his gun trained on Sabo's forehead. Nothing he couldn't dodge, but he didn't want to get into a fight with these guys, especially now of all times.

"…"

"It's okay!" Luffy's voice rang right next to Sabo's ears. "Sabo's our brother!"

…Maybe this young idiot's recovery had been a bit too fast. Sabo could have slapped himself.

"That'll just confuse them more, Luffy."

He sensed, rather than saw, Luffy pout. The arms wrapped around him got tighter. "But it's true! And you're the nicer brother, too!"

"Hm? I am?"

"Yeah, _way_ nicer than Ace! You don't know this, but after you died…well, we thought you died, but you didn't, but anyways, when you died, training wasn't nearly as fun 'cause you weren't there with us! And Ace just kept beating me all the time and there was nobody to beat him back! Hey, hey, Sabo, I can beat you now! I can beat both of you!"

At this point, Luffy seemed to have made a complete recovery. Amazing, this guy's ability to adjust. Sabo blinked at the onslaught of words terrorizing his ears. Oh, yeah. He'd forgotten this part about Luffy.

He hadn't thought much about it because Luffy didn't appear too as too much of a chatterbox in the comic book, but that wasn't the Luffy he remembered.

As far as he could recall, Luffy used to have a motormouth as big as that Usopp kid's.

"Haha, I'm sure you've managed to improve that pistol punch of yours," Sabo grinned.

"You bet! And I've gotten some other moves too, and they're all super cool! I'll show them to you later…!"

Then, before anybody could react, a giant arm swept them all into an embrace. Sabo felt himself being tossed aboard the Moby Dick's upper deck by a ridiculously strong hand. Just a second later, two huge boots landed on the deck next to him. Craning his neck, Sabo saw a grim-faced Whitebeard towering over them.

The old man's lips slowly stretched into a grin. "We're off, boys!"

Behind them, the marines were charging full throttle, intent on stopping us before we set sail. But in the face of the Whitebeard pirates' fastest armada, their legs were far too slow.

In the distance, an enraged Akainu stood with his face livid with fury. More than likely, he realized that the pirates would succeed in their getaway, now that everyone was on board the ship. The experienced pirates scrambled to lower the sails, preparing to take off, victorious, their 2nd division commander proudly in tow.

"We're off!"

"Haul in the anchor!"

"So long, you wimpy marines!"

"Ace is back! We're partying tonight!"

As victorious cheers and salutes filled the air, Ace staggered forward under the onslaught of friendly slaps on the back, and suddenly seemed to find something within himself.

The sparkle in his eye returned. Even after nearly 10 years, Sabo could still recognize the old flame burning in his brother's soul. Ace looked around, suddenly seeming to realize that he was back on board his ship, escaping with his crewmates from his execution site and none the worse for wear.

Well, maybe a little.

At that moment, something compelled Sabo to turn around and look out over the island. As the ships cast off, his eyes found those of Blackbeard and his crew. They stood at the back, partially hidden behind some hills, and a few of them looked absolutely livid. The sharpshooter cocked his rifle at Sabo's head, but for some reason, Blackbeard halted him with a hand held up. The others, including Sabo, became quite confused at this, but Blackbeard just laughed. Even from this distance, the sound of his voice grated on his ears.

And in that last second before Sabo turned around, a crazed glint came over Blackbeard's piercing stare; though Sabo ignored it, Whitebeard glanced back at his former crew member, his expression just as unreadable.

For a tense minute, Sabo actually thought that Blackbeard may just charge across the battlefield and attack Whitebeard head-on.

But no.

Whitebeard, still standing strong, remained impassive and immovable, while Blackbeard and his crew turned around and disappeared towards the back of the island, most likely to get away before the marines found them and things got out of hand. Without even knowing it, Sabo gave a sigh of relief. Honestly, he didn't know what that murderous man would have done if Ace had actually died, but in any case, he wouldn't be bothering them any more for now.

Sabo sat down and pried Luffy's arms off gently. The boy had knocked out as soon as Whitebeard deposited them on board, proving that Ivankov's hormones really had been a huge strain on his body. Smiling rather fondly, Sabo leaned Luffy against the rails and ruffled the hair under his hat. Stupid kid.

You're as hopeless as ever.

But at least one thing has changed.

Leaning against the rails and tilting his head back, Sabo gave a long sigh of relief.

Portgas D. Ace…lives.

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**A/N:**I've been updating daily so far but...the next chappie might take a little while. It's the long-awaited chapter of Sabo and Ace's official reunion, which I've been dying to get to. But for some reason, it's very difficult to write. I find myself getting stuck because...honestly, it's very hard to say how Ace would react if Sabo came back to life.

Hopefully I'll be able to upload that chapter soon! Please read and review! Reviews give me strength to go on ^^


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** This chapter gave me a load of pain. I've editted it many times and I'm still not satisfied, and in the end I was like, "what the heck, I'll let the reader decide whether it sucks or not." Haha, please R&R, and understand that Ace and Sabo's reactions to each other were some of the most difficult parts for me to imagine in canon.

I hope you enjoy.

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**Chapter 7**

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"Sabo."

At the sound of a familiar voice behind him, Sabo grimaced. The Moby Dick and the rest of the Whitebeard fleet had sailed for several hours non-stop, traveling towards a deserted island somewhere down the Grand Line that they often used as a resting base. It wouldn't do to stop anywhere populated right now.

The ship's doctor and nurses gave the treatments necessary. Some of them took one look at Luffy and started shouting in panic. Sabo watched them cart the unconscious boy off somewhere in record speed, with Ivankov following close behind.

"That okama…" Sabo tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I'll have to have a conversation with him later."

Make sure that the revolutionary didn't go around zapping Luffy with energizer hormones again.

The poor kid had too much energy as it is.

"Sabo."

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder. Sabo fidgeted a bit, then gave a sigh. He knew he'd have to face his childhood friend sooner or later. Heck, he'd already confronted Ace once already, but that was different. They'd both been trying to escape a battlefield. Right now, though, everything was peaceful, giving them ample time to have a 'talk.'

He had no idea what to expect. This was one situation in which he couldn't even begin to formulate a plan.

"…Ace," Sabo said softly. He turned around to face his sworn brother, and felt the hand fall helplessly off his shoulder. Though Ace looked battered, bruised, and tired, the determined glare in his eyes shone brighter than ever. In those black pupils, Sabo could see himself reflected: suddenly uncertain, and nervous.

"That…uh…" Sabo had no idea what to say now. "Well…"

The ship was quiet. Everyone who wasn't in the hospital ward now stood on deck, stared at Sabo and Ace quite blatantly. Whitebeard, who sat in a gigantic chair behind the forecastle and had 6 or 7 nurses attending to his injuries, watched curiously as his son stared silently at the newcomer. Next to him, Marco gave his head a scratch, not really sure what to make of the 2nd division commander's attitude. Fire-fist had never looked so conflicted.

"I think it's time we knew who you are now," Marco drawled out, directing the crew's general inquiry at Sabo. "I've never seen you before. Not even a Wanted Poster. I've asked around, nobody's seen you nor heard of you, but…"

"He's Sabo," Ace abruptly cut him off. "His name is Sabo. He used to live in the Kingdom of Goa…"

"…"

Then, without warning, Ace cocked his fingers into the shape of a gun, and pointed it at Sabo's forehead.

Sabo blinked.

_Boom!_

The railing that stood behind where Sabo used to be splintered into charcoal as a fireball exploded out of Ace's fingers. Seeing that Sabo had dodged, Ace abandoned his fingers in favor of his feet. The man aimed a kick straight for Sabo's head – with an involuntary yelp, Sabo flipped over to the side, shedding his backpack as he did so.

Ace was serious.

As Ace's boot swung wide in an arc, Sabo gave a kick of his own, connecting solidly with Ace's leg. Well, at least, it would have connected, if that same leg didn't dissolve into flames.

"Hey!" Sabo's yell of indignation got cut off when Ace ducked into a low crouch, fist pulled back and ready. Sabo recognized that posture, from the manga. "Are you serious? Wait, Ace!"

A torrent of flames roared into Sabo's face as Ace gave a fast punch. "Flame fist!"

This guy…

Was he trying to kill him?

Sabo's mind descended into panic as he swung his staff to the left, diverting most of the fire and ducking to avoid the rest. A couple of hairs on his head got singed, but that wasn't worth mentioning.

A blow to the stomach sent Sabo flying into the mast. Grabbing a loose rope just before crashing into the wooden pillar, Sabo swung himself onto the riggings above and looked down. In that short time, Ace had disappeared. Gritting his teeth, Sabo slipped off the rope and narrowly dodged Ace's mid-air kick, this time his leg on fire. Using his momentum, Sabo swung back up, aiming a kick of his own into his airborne opponent's torso.

It would have connected. Only, Sabo found that his boot had caught fire instead.

"Ouch!" he let go of the rope and plunged down, landed on his two feet before stomping out the flames. He looked up. Ace crouched on the rope that Sabo had been holding, lips drawn taut. There was a brief lull as they stared at each other.

Then, Ace shot down from his position and aimed another flame fist at Sabo. This time, Sabo leapt straight into the incoming flames. With a few twirls of his staff, the flames dissipated harmlessly, bringing Sabo straight into attack range. Ace's eyes widened as Sabo emerged from the fire and punched Ace on the nose. On reflex, Ace's face licked into bright orange fire, and again Sabo's attack fell harmlessly onto the flames. A kick immediately following it also passed through Ace's stomach. They both landed onto the deck, unscathed, and charged each other at the same time.

The exchanged almost blow for blow, Ace finding his attacks blocked every time, while Sabo's hits always met with fire and air. Others came up on deck, joining the Whitebeard crew as they watched their 2nd division commander fight evenly with another man. Some were already placing bets on the winner, most pitching their support towards Ace. Marco gave a whistle.

"Pops, have you noticed?"

"Gurarara," Whitebeard chuckled, eyes twinkling. "Those two make a good pair."

Indeed. To a casual observer, punches were narrowly dodged and each kick was heart-stoppingly close. But to any experienced fighter, the emerging pattern was obvious. These two, they had fought each other before.

In fact, they'd fought each other enough times to be completely in sync with each other. It was almost like they could read each others' minds, no matter how unpredictable or violent the next move turned out to be. They flowed from one blow to the next, never taking their eyes off each other, and never letting one take the advantage. No matter what shape the next attacker took, his opponent stood ready to counter it.

"Hmm," Whitebeard stroked his beard thoughtfully, recalling what the cheeky brat – Ace's younger brother – had shouted just before they got on board. "Not one, but two brothers?"

A roar started up in the onlookers. Ace and Sabo had come to a standstill, both panting and flushed. Ace had his fist up against Sabo's head, ready to burn it clean off Sabo's shoulders. Sabo had the end of his staff pointed straight at the other's throat – one thrust, with Sabo's strength, would be enough to impale him.

They stood there, staring at each other for a moment.

Then Ace broke into a smile. It was a smile of relief, of joy, and happiness. The man gave a bark of laughter, and threw his arms around Sabo, glomping him in a squeezing embrace.

"It's you, Sabo!" Ace laughed again, clutching his brother tighter. "It's really you!"

Sabo, who had felt immensely relieved the moment Ace's impassive expression broke out into sunshine, dropped his staff in shock.

Ace, was hugging him.

Ace was _hugging _him.

The Ace he remembered, at 10 years old, would _never _have hugged him, let alone anybody else. Luffy had hugged Sabo all the time, so he was used to it, but _Ace_?

"Ace?" Sabo asked, his body stiff in surprise.

Ace paid no heed. Unshed tears glistened in his eyes. Just as Sabo began to raise his arms to hug him back, Ace broke the hug and stepped back. Huh?

_Bam! _

_Splash!_

Totally unprepared for the attack, Sabo got a solid kick on his chest and went sailing over the rails and into the ocean, landing in the water with a big splash.

For a little while, the deck was silent as everyone stared at their 2nd division commander. Unaware of the dumbfounded stares his crew was giving him, Ace swept his hair back nonchalantly, not forgetting to give a glare at the bubbling ocean waters below.

With a resounding splash, Sabo's head popped out of the waters, his hair and goggles soaking wet. Treading the waters carefully, Sabo yelled up at him, "What's the big idea, Ace?"

"Shut up," Ace scowled irritably. "You've got no right to yell at me after being gone for 9 years. Do you know how much Luffy cried after we read your letter?"

Sabo flinched guiltily. "I meant for it to be true. If that Tennryubito hadn't attacked my boat—"

"That still doesn't change the fact that you left us," Ace cut him off. "You left us, when we would have fought to keep together. Do you realize what you did that day?"

The day you walked away from us, thinking you were protecting us?

Sabo didn't answer. Instead, he began to swim back towards the ship. One of the crew members sensibly threw a rope over the rails. As Sabo climbed back on board, he found Ace standing before him, forehead scrunched up in anger. But his eyes held an infinite number of questions, the loudest one being: why?

Why did you leave us, if you weren't going to be happy?

Why did you go ahead of us, when we promised to leave together?

And most importantly.

"Why didn't you come back?" Ace spoke softly. The slight catch in his voice went almost unnoticed, except for Sabo, who caught it and felt his chest tighten in guilt. "If you were alive this whole time, why didn't you come back to us?"

"…I couldn't," Sabo answered, the words heavy on his tongue. "I was at a place where I couldn't come back, no matter how hard I tried…"

"Don't lie to me, Sabo. We both know that of all people, _you _would be able to figure out a way back," Ace smiled ruefully. "You were always the smartest one in our bunch."

"Not that you ever admitted it," Sabo muttered, not knowing what else he could say.

". . ."

"Sorry, Ace," Sabo said, at length. "I'm…sorry. For leaving you guys behind. For not coming back. I should have tried harder. I was…"

A hand on his shoulder, this time much gentler, yet firmer, stopped Sabo mid-sentence. Ace looked him in the eye, his expression leaving no room for protest.

"So did you keep your promise?"

Our promise.

Slowly, Sabo's mouth curved into a grin. "I did."

He went over to his backpack, which lay on its side, and opened the zipper. In a quick motion, the backpack was upside down, the contents spilling out helter-skelter on the deck. A flood of papers fluttered out. Ace and the rest of the crew watched as the entire backpack was emptied, full of paper, paper, and more paper.

"It's my travel log," Sabo picked a piece of paper up and waved it in the air. "All 846 pages of it. Where I was and what I was doing…you'll find it all in here."

"_So what are you going to do when we head out to sea?"_

"_I'm going to keep a travel log and record all our journeys. I'll let people know what it's like to live out your dreams, free from oppression and worries!"_

"_Oh, yeah? I'll be the captain then. I'll sail the four Blues and become a feared pirate!"_

"_I'm gonna be Pirate King!"_

"_Huh!? You little brat, shut up! Do you even know what that means?"_

"_Sure do! Pirate Kings are the coolest!"_

"_That's impossible!"_

"_Hahaha, good luck Luffy!"_

"_Shishishi, thanks Sabo!"_

"_Are you both crazy!?"_

"Hope you kept up your end of the bargain," Sabo flicked the paper over to Ace. The other caught it deftly and looked at it, a smile of his own beginning to form.

"Sure did. And Luffy's…well, Luffy's trying."

"I can see that," Sabo threw a glance over at the doctor's cabin, where Luffy was being treated. "And I can tell you, he's closer to his goal than either of us right now."

"How would you know that?"

He's the main character. Sabo swallowed these words, and instead looked back at Ace. The man was grinning, matching the joy on Sabo's face.

"Hey, Sabo. Don't up and leave again, got that?"

"Wasn't planning on it."

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**A/N:**Sorry Sabo, nothing goes as planned.

Just in case some people think this is the happy ending, guess again!

Next chapter preview:

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_"You!"_

_"Sabo!"_

_"Zehahahahaha, nobody tricks Blackbeard and gets away with it!"_

_"What is this? In the darkness...is that...the portal...?"_

_"Sabo!"_

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...well, til next time.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:**Oops. Haha, I've read some people's reviews, and I realized that I made a mistake with my words.

What I meant at the end of the last chapter was that, chapter 7 isn't the end.

There's more to come.

So...**that's** not the happy ending, but a happy ending will come eventually.

But this story itself, by the time it gets to the end, will have a happy ending. Indeed, I love happy endings! :D Yay for happy endings. I hate tragedies.

But there are a few minor details that need to be worked out so...haha. The happy ending is still a chapter or two away.

So I posted this chapter early to avoid any further misunderstandings.

Well then, please enjoy!

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Chapter 8

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The funeral for the deceased Whitebeard crew members was well under way. Whitebeard himself personally oversaw all the plans and details, making sure his beloved sons were honored as the brave and courageous men they were. It was a solemn ceremony – Ace's shoulders looked heavy with guilt, even from where Sabo stood quite a distance away.

This funeral wasn't something for him to attend.

Leaving the Whitebeard pirates to grieve for their fallen comrades, Sabo took one last look at the gravestones before turning around, heading into the surrounding forest. He gave his thanks to those that had taken the death meant for Ace. Though his mind grieved like the rest, his heart couldn't help but be glad that it wasn't Ace's gravestone being marked.

With a weary sigh, Sabo threaded his way through the trees. The sound of pirates wailing and weeping faded into the distance behind him.

The entire fleet currently sat docked in the natural bay of the island. According to the map Sabo filched from one of the cabins, it was an uncharted island, a tiny dot among dots.

"Right around…here, I'd say," Sabo tapped the ragged piece of paper in his hands thoughtfully. They lay somewhere between Water 7 and the Red Line, as far away from Marineford as they could be with a day's worth of sailing. They couldn't afford to travel any more than that. The ships needed repairs. The crew needed rest.

"Sabo!"

The sound of Luffy's voice brought his steps to a halt. Looking to the right, he saw his younger brother running towards him, waving. With a scratch of his head, Sabo went forward to meet him, chastising him along the way. "Luffy, the doctors said you shouldn't be moving around. It's only been 3 days, and that big head's hormones still haven't completely left your body."

"But I feel fine," Luffy bounced from one foot to another, as if to demonstrate. "And I needed to pay my, my returns to the graves…"

"Respects."

"Yeah, my respects."

"…So did you?"

"…"

"…"

A small grin formed on Sabo's face. He lifted his hand and pressed down hard on the kid's straw hat. Ignoring Luffy's indignant protests, Sabo indicated the direction of the funeral with his chin. "Go on. I'll be on the other side of the island, getting some air. The wind here is so much fresher than the 'other' world."

At this, Luffy seemed to grow more serious. "Sabo, where were you all these years?"

"Um," Sabo quirked an eyebrow, unsure how to answer this question. "Somewhere else?"

"Somewhere else where?" a pout formed on Luffy's face. "Was it so far that you couldn't even come back and visit?"

"…Yeah. It was so far, that I might have thought everything here was just a dream."

Sabo's grin turned bitter for one second, but he quickly hid it behind another smile. "But then I realized that I could never just _dream_ up a troublemaking, idiot little brother like you."

At this, it was Luffy's turn to smile. "Shishishi, you told me I was less of a troublemaker than Ace."

"Did I? Oh, yeah," their smiles turned conspiratory. "You were nothing compared to Ace back then. In fact, considering that Ace tried to challenge to a duel only months after going out to sea…"

But then Sabo recalled how Luffy had declared his intentions to become King of the Pirates, right in Whitebeard's face.

Turning his head, Sabo coughed slightly. "Eh, well. You guys were both idiots."

"So were you!"

"…"

"Well, maybe not, but," Luffy just looked confused now, "well, I, uh, I can beat you now!"

"Yes, yes," giving an accommodating nod, Sabo pushed Luffy towards the direction of the Whitebeard pirates. "Now, if you want to pay your respects, better go before the sun sets. And don't go jumping all over Ace now, will you? Give him some space."

At the gentle nod from Sabo, Luffy nodded back, before heading off with a solemn expression on his face. But just before he went over the hill, he turned back and waved, shouting, "I'll tell you about my pirate crew later, Sabo. You'll get to meet them soon, as soon as we get back to Sabody!"

Sabo simply waved.

When Luffy's straw hat disappeared over the hill, Sabo continued on his way in the opposite direction. It was a pretty small island. In a short time, Sabo was standing in a small clearing near the edge of a cliff, overlooking a peaceful ocean calm.

A sizable logboat lay docked below near the rocky outcrops.

Sabo blinked.

"Eh…" Sabo frowned. "How exactly did they find us here?"

Silence.

Then, in the shadows of the trees to the right, there emerged a few figures. They were familiar to Sabo. He gripped the staff in his hands, trying to keep his expression unreadable. It wasn't working too well.

"Zehahahaha, I'm guessing you didn't know but…" Blackbeard's toothy grin lowered darkly in anger, "a traitor's punishment is death."

"That's fine and dandy coming from a traitor himself."

"…So you knew, eh? Did Ace tell you about it? I hear that you're his brother."

"He is."

Sabo wouldn't deny this for anything.

"I see," Blackbeard scratched his chin, eyeing the boy in front of him cynically. "That means that from the start, you had no intent to join my crew? What of that 'fateful meeting' that you mentioned when we first set eyes on each other, hm?"

"I don't believe in fate."

I've already changed it once, after all.

"Don't believe?"

Zehahahahaha! The man began to laugh hysterically, tears pooling at the edge of his eyes. His other crew members seemed disconcerted at this. When Blackbeard showed no sign of stopping, the sniper seemed to decide to take matters into his own hands. Cocking his rifle at Sabo, he growled in a low voice, "there's only one thing a liar and a traitor deserves."

"Like I said, that's funny, coming from a pirate crew formed by a liar and a traitor. Oh, and a thief and a murderer to boot."

_Bang! Bang!_

Sabo quickly spun the staff before him, and felt two bullets chip off the edge of the steel. That was close.

Taking a step back, Sabo kept his staff in front of him, gripped with both hands, in case that crazy gunman decided to fire again. Apparently, captain's orders weren't necessary to attack.

Blackbeard finally seemed to be coming around. His uncontrollable peals of laughter slowly shrunk down into light chuckles. Quite a merry sound. Too bad there was a cloud of darkness beginning to form around Blackbeard's feet.

The man didn't look quite all there, judging by the crazy glint in his eyes.

"Well, now," Blackbeard drawled out slowly. "For lying to me, Blackbeard, the pirate who will open the next chapter of pirate history as the greatest power in the world…"

"Ah, wait, no. That'll be Luffy you're talking about."

"Eh?"

"You've heard him say it at least once, right? He's going to become King of the Pirates. Based on what I know," Sabo scrunched up his face in consternation. "He's about halfway there, I'd say."

Well, that was what the author of the manga had announced anyway. But with Sabo's interruption, he had no idea what would really happen. Would the manga change? Or would it stay the same? Was it all the same world, or were they two different 'worlds'? It was all so confusing.

His thoughts were interrupted by Blackbeard's laugh. "Zehahaha, halfway there, you say? Straw Hat Luffy? With me and Whitebeard still alive? If that's the case, then I've arrived at the top a long time ago! Zehahaha!"

And suddenly, the laughter was gone. "So, Sabo, since you've ruined my plans by saving Ace back at Marineford,"

Pitch darkness, darker than a starless night, splayed out from a pool of black at Blackbeard's feet, swallowing up the grass and weeds in its path. Sabo jumped back hurriedly as the darkness snaked towards him. Dashing quickly to the right, he leaped and rolled just as the entire clearing turned into a shadowy pit. His hand found a tree branch in midair, and he swung onto it, eyeing the dangerous substance below him.

Blackbeard spread his arms wide in triumph. "I'll be sure to ruin you just as much!"

The man of darkness signaled with his hand. A rifle cocked itself at Sabo's head.

_Bang!_

Sabo swung onto the next tree as several more bullets chased after him, trying to knock him out of the tree. Dark vines reached up out of the blackened ground. They threatened to snag his feet and drag him down, and Sabo had to stay light on his toes to avoid getting caught.

A grunt of frustration tore from his lips.

Tearing off a hard apple from a nearby branch, Sabo threw it at his attacker, managing to strike Blackbeard right on the nose.

"Ow!"

As expected, the darkness retreated ever so slightly as Blackbeard adjusted to the amplified pain. Taking the chance, Sabo flew through the branches and landed on the ground a good 50 yards away from the clearing.

Without another look back, Sabo took off into the forest, a howling Blackbeard and his vengeful crew close behind.

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**A/N:**Run Sabo Run!


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:**Uwahhhhh SORRY for being so late! Yes, as one of my reviewers commented, life did get in my way. School among other things has been keeping me busy for a while...

so here is an extra long chapter to make up for it! It's the last chapter officially, but I am planning an epilogue after this so that we can all have that "aww so happy it's a real happy ending" moment.

Yes, because it is a happy ending! I love happy endings! Sabo must have a happy ending, that's the whole reason I started writing this fic in the first place!

So there you go. Minor spoiler, but who cares, cuz we all love Sabo ^^

Onward!

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Chapter 9

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He didn't get very far.

The earth seemed to turn traitor, losing its natural pull on Sabo's pounding feet as he felt himself being sucked backwards. Sabo hurriedly jammed his staff into a crook of a nearby tree; gravity shifted 90 degrees and he was falling sideways, straight towards Blackbeard's outstretched hand.

Stupid devil's fruit.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, Sabo gripped his staff tighter as his feet gave way. Loose rocks and leaves tumbled past him in a flurry, flecks of dirt spittled onto his face.

"Blegh!" he split out the clump of grassroots that flew into his mouth, and tried his best to hang on as his airborne body hung parallel to the ground. More gunshots fired behind him. He twisted himself a bit to avoid getting shot, but a few bullets grazed his legs. The sting of the pain made it harder to hang on.

"Zehahahaha, get back boys! Don't want to end up getting vacuumed off the map!" Blackbeard's voice sounded out.

'Ok, I need a plan, I need a plan,' Sabo tried to think quickly. He'd gotten a good head start on them, but now he was stuck, and looking past his shoulders, he could see that distance was irrelevant. Pitch black covered the once beautiful scenery. Trees and bushes were getting swallowed up mercilessly as if by a voracious beast. Smack in the middle of its jaws stood

Blackbeard, alone and cackling triumphantly.

Entire trees standing around Sabo began to lose their hold on the earth. Sabo cursed as the tree he was using as an anchor suddenly gave way. Deftly yanking out his staff as the mass of bark and foliage careened past his vision, Sabo did a turnabout mid-air, already feeling his body follow the rest of the landscape: straight towards a freaking black hole.

"Just one hit!" he cried, eyes fixed on the alarmingly huge mass of black that covered his vision. "Just one!"

The other Blackbeard crew members were nowhere to be found. Probably retreated at a safe distance behind their captain, wary of that volatile power that discriminated neither friend nor foe. As the distance between him and Ace's nemesis closed in rapidly, Sabo fixed his eyes on Blackbeard's form, never minding the claws of shadow that leapt up eagerly to meet him halfway.

Sabo made a deft somersault in midair, avoiding most of the darkness as it converged onto him. But one of his feet got swallowed up; from the left ankle down, Sabo saw there was now nothing but _black. _

A numb sensation began to crawl its way up his leg.

"Ok, forget the hit. I'll just throw it!" he breathed, and with all his might, hurled his staff like a spear straight towards Blackbeard's chest.

The bigger man dodged, but wasn't quick enough to match the speed of a spear pole backed by years of hard physical training in the Japanese Navy. There was an audible _crack,_ and the darkness receded in an instant as Blackbeard slammed onto his back with a howl of pain. The tip hadn't been sharp enough to pierce, but Sabo's aim was true.

Right in the center of Blackbeard's frame. With twice the pain being absorbed, Sabo figured even a man like Blackbeard would take at least a few seconds to recover his senses.

As the darkness disappeared, Sabo landed in a light crouch, never having been more thankful that the laws of gravity applied in this world as well. The darkness that had clung to his leg beat a hasty retreat back towards Blackbeard.

"Captain!" he heard one of the crew members yell out worriedly. Laffitte seemed to be holding him back.

"Calm down, the captain said he can handle it."

"Yup, he sure can," Sabo called out, "so how about everyone stays where they are until he recovers?"

With that, he tried to take off again. Running away didn't sit well with him, but what else could he do? Black holes just weren't his forte. If he'd had the foresight to bring an automated machine gun back with him from the other world, maybe he would actually have stood a chance.

But Blackbeard's recovery time was shorter than he thought.

"Not so fast, you little brat!" he sounded pretty angry. Clutching his chest, his dirty face screwed up in pain, Blackbeard stretched out his other hand once more. Once again, the landscape instantly became splashed with black. It took even less time than before for Sabo to feel his feet slipping off the ground again.

"Only cowards and weaklings let their devil's fruit power do the fighting for them!" Sabo tried.

"Zehahaha, then I'll be both, and rule the Grand Line while I'm at it!"

'Dammit!'

Not even worth a shot. This time Sabo's hands were empty; not that he could try and throw something else at Blackbeard—the man learned fast, throwing up a wall of shadows right in front of himself to guard against any and all projectiles. What a coward.

Sabo's body hurtled into the mass of shadows. He gave a few somersaults in mid-air, but to no avail. Boundless darkness instantly swallowed up his left leg, creeping up rapidly towards his waist and chest.

"Oh…boy, oh man, oh boy," Sabo gave a desperate kick, but it just served to offer up his other leg to the shadow's greedy clutches. He glanced all around him in hopes of finding something to hang on to, even as his memory informed him that with the dark-dark fruit active, nothing could withstand the gravitational pull.

At the last minute, just before blackness swallowed his head, Sabo looked up and locked eyes with Blackbeard. The pirate leered at him in triumph. Sabo attempted to give him one last scowl, but Blackbeard was faster. Before Sabo had time to scowl, or even have a flashback of his past life, or leave a last word for his brothers, his blonde hair was utterly lost amidst the pitch dark that covered the surrounding area.

At that exact moment, when the last traces of shining blonde disappeared, a straw hat appeared on the horizon.

"Saboooooooooooo!"

Blackbeard's guttural laugh answered Luffy's cry. "Zehahahaha, if it isn't the Straw-hat boy! Come to find your brother, eh?"

"You again! What did you do to Sabo!" Luffy shouted, dashing headlong down the hill towards Blackbeard, regardless of the swelling mass of darkness that surrounded him. The boy looked frantically left and right, trying to locate the familiar crop of blonde hair. After he parted with Sabo and went to the Whitebeard pirates' funeral, Luffy had quickly gotten bored of the proceedings and decided he wanted to tell Sabo all about his adventures on the Grand Line. He wanted to tell his brother about his pirate crew, and all the trouble they went through (that he put them through), all the laughs they shared, everything. Even though he didn't know where they were right now, Luffy was sure they would eventually get come back together.

And then, he could introduce them to his other brother.

The one he still considered to be the nicer one.

"Where's Sabo!?" Luffy drew his arm back and threw a gum-gum pistol at Blackbeard. He didn't really like the knowing smile on the guy's face.

The older pirate, not expecting the boy to attack with warning, got socked right in the jaw and fell back for the second time that day. The darkness receded a little, but not by much.

"Zehahaha," Blackbeard laughed slowly, spitting out a mouthful of blood. "No use looking for that one. He's been swallowed up by my dark-dark fruit . . . the next time you see him will be when I decide to spit him back out. And who knows what he'll look like by that time?

"Zehahahaha!"

Luffy, who had searched every other part of the island and knew for sure that Sabo had to have been here, didn't stop looking this way and that as he asked, "where's Sabo? That black stuff

doesn't look very good. What'd you do to Sabo?"

"He's wandering the abysses of darkness right about now, miserable, lost, lonely . . . zehahaha, he'll be trapped in my darkness forever!"

"What are you, stupid? I thought I heard Sabo's voice here, but if you don't know where he is, then stop wasting my time!" with a condescending look that struck Blackbeard dumb for a few moments, Luffy made to dash off again, still calling for Sabo.

"Hold it, kid! You're the one who doesn't understand! You see this darkness?" Blackbeard pointed at the black stuff at his feet, glaring at Luffy as he did so. He didn't appreciate being made fun of.

"I don't care about that. I need to find Sabo."

"He's inside here, Straw-hat! If you want to find him, then you'll have to dive in, right here!"

"Oh, is that so? Why didn't you say so from the start?" Luffy made to rush right into the middle of the darkness, and would have been swallowed up without a trace within seconds if it hadn't been for the burning hand that shot out and grabbed his collar from behind.

"Luffy, don't be an idiot!" Ace's voice rang out in the woods. He looked out of breath, panting as he held on tightly to Luffy's vest. The younger boy struggled to get out of the hold.

"Ace, let go! We have to rescue Sabo from that . . . that mystery thing!" Luffy pointed at the pool of darkness.

"Calm down! We don't even know if Sabo was actually taken into Teach's dark-dark fruit power . . ."

"Oh, but he was, 2nd commander," came Blackbeard's mocking voice. "It's what that boy gets for interfering with my plans. If all had gone well, Whitebeard would be dead and I would have gotten a-hold of one of the strongest devil's fruit powers in existence . . . but you're alive, and so is your captain, all because of that meddling kid!"

**[A/N:** I disclaim all rights to Scooby Doo]

Ace, who had suddenly been taken over by an unexplainable gnawing in his stomach, had excused himself from the funeral and went off after Luffy, figuring that if there was to be any trouble happening, his youngest brother would be at the center of it. But to find Marshall D. Teach and Luffy facing off, not to mention this whole talk about Sabo being swallowed by Teach's dark powers . . .

His face slowly crumpled in rage as the magnitude of what Blackbeard was claiming sank in. Luffy, who still didn't realize the extent of the dark powers, continued to struggle against Ace's death grip.

However, when he chanced a look up at Ace's face, Luffy ceased his movements. Instead, a serious look passed through his eyes, one that had passed there too many times in the past few days. Ace actually looked distressed. He was biting his lips, at the same time sending Blackbeard a murderous glare. Only the thought that he needed to keep Luffy out of Blackbeard's reach stopped Ace from jumping in there himself, grabbing Teach by the collar, and demanding to know what the hell happened here.

"Hey, Teach . . ." Ace bit out slowly. "Am I to understand that Sabo has been swa . . . llowed by your powers?"

"Zehahahaha, that's right! Too bad for him he didn't have a bounty on his head. Or else I would have kept him and turned him into the Marines for a profit . . ."

"TEACH!" a flaming meteor the size of a cannonball ballooned out of Ace's hand and shot towards Blackbeard. He dodged, but several more followed, and he quickly became tired of facing off against Ace's fire powers.

"I think you've forgotten that I can just pull you in and cancel those devil's fruit powers of yours," Blackbeard jeered. Immediately activating those said powers, he watched with satisfaction as Ace got pulled in. As soon as Ace felt his body leaving his control, he let go of Luffy so that the kid wouldn't get involved too.

"Ace!"

As Luffy bounced onto the ground, Ace found himself inches from Blackbeard's face, with his accursed hand resting lightly on his shoulder. Dammit! Was he about to lose to the same man twice?

Was he about to lose the same brother . . .twice?

Just as he made to kick out with his foot, and maybe get in a punch or two before Blackbeard let go of him, Ace thought he heard a faint shout.

'Huh?'

Apparently, Blackbeard heard it too, because they both paused, disregarding their current position as sworn enemies, and turned their heads with one accord towards the direction the voice came from.

It was Sabo's voice.

". . . ! . . . –ight! Ace, I'm alright!"

Ace's eyes widened, though probably not as much as Blackbeard's. They could see nothing but black on the ground, yet from beneath that blackness—beyond the shadows, somehow—Sabo's voice was telling Ace that he was alright.

His voice was barely audible, and Ace would never have heard it if he hadn't been right in the middle of the pool of black.

"Sabo?" he breathed.

He could hear Sabo's reply, but it was faint and far-off, and he could only catch parts of it. Though Ace was thoroughly confused and hadn't the slightest idea why he was hearing Sabo's voice when he should have been killed by Blackbeard, Ace strained to hear the words.

". . . this world . . . ! . . . again, I—! I'll . . . ! . . . back! . . . I can . . . go . . . ! . . . wait for m—!"

He didn't understand, but he got the last part of it. At the same time, he realized that Blackbeard was also standing stock still in confusion.

_Whack!_

Taking the chance, Ace aimed a low kick at Blackbeard's leg and knocked him off his feet, jumping back as Teach fell ungracefully onto his face.

Turning his right arm into a flaming sword, Ace meant to finish off the traitor right then and there, if it hadn't been for Luffy shouting behind him, "Hang on, Sabo! I'm coming to rescue you!"

Instantly, Ace whirled around and shot towards Luffy, scooping him out a hairbreadth's moment before the boy's entire body disappeared into the abyss. This unbelievable guy. He'd actually dived headfirst into the darkness covering the ground.

As Ace pulled Luffy out by his ankle, he meant to give his idiot brother a good dressing-down for making him lose this golden chance to get rid of Teach once and for all.

That is, if he didn't see Luffy smiling from ear to ear as he dangled upside down in Ace's grip.

"Ace, Sabo's alright!"

"Huh?"

"I saw him! He's alive!"

"What do you mean? Where?" as Ace began to look around, Luffy pointed at the place where he had just been pulled out of. The darkness.

"Sabo's in there!" Luffy shouted excitedly.

Ace tried to make sense of what his brother was saying, putting it together with the unmistakable voice of Sabo he had heard just moments before. So Sabo had been swallowed by Teach's devil's fruit powers. No doubt about that. But could it be? Had Sabo somehow managed to survive the attack?

But Blackbeard apparently didn't feel like waiting for the D brothers to figure out what had happened to Sabo. Recovering himself, and seething with rage that he'd been downed by all three brothers within the same hour, Blackbeard suddenly began spreading out his darkness at an alarming rate, intent on erasing both Ace and Luffy off the face of the earth.

Ace leapt back with Luffy's ankle still clutched in his hand, but the darkness was faster; he found that he couldn't retreat as rapidly as the shadows consumed the landscape. His feet whirled into a flaming tornado in an effort to get out of range.

"Zehahaha, there's no escaping the dark-dark fruit!" roared Teach, his maniacal laughter filling the air.

Then without warning, the ground beneath him gave way.

"Ah…?"

Tremors began to shake the grass beneath their feet; the sound of cracking glass echoed loudly amid the few remaining trees that had not been uprooted by Blackbeard's vortex. Blackbeard's pirate crew all simultaneously lost their balance, staggering this way and that as the ground heaved violently.

"So…Teach, you've come back," a deep, familiar baritone sounded out, accompanied by the booming sound of his fist crashing against the air.

"Pops!" Ace landed next to Whitebeard's tall form, surprised to see almost the entire Whitebeard fleet running towards them. "How did you get here? I mean, how'd you know?"

Whitebeard didn't take his eyes away from Blackbeard, who finally seemed to feel apprehensive in the face of the great pirate himself.

"Some of my other sons followed you when you left the funeral . . . it seems they were afraid you might still be thinking that it might be your fault, as useless as such a thought is. When they realized you had run into Teach, they immediately reported back to me," here Whitebeard addressed Blackbeard, who had been trying to sneak away quietly. "So, Teach, how does it feel to wield a power that you stole by murdering a brother?"

In the face of Whitebeard's stoic wrath, even Teach didn't have the gall to laugh. "I don't regret what I've done, Whitebeard. If I were to go back, I would do it all over again, the exact same way! Power! This power is something that not even you can look down on!"

". . . That may be so, but I know this much is true—even the weakest of my sons are stronger than you, Teach."

The sound of Teach grinding his teeth was clearly audible, even from a distance. Ace warily got into a battle stance, as did the rest of the Whitebeard crew. A nervous silence settled over the air. Whitebeard and Blackbeard both stood still, eyeing each other, one impassively, the other with undisguised hate. Luffy, who remained somewhat clueless to the direction of the conversation, hefted himself up from where Ace had dropped him and dusted off his head.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ace noticed something missing. Surprised, he asked, "hey Luffy, where'd you leave your hat?"

"My hat?" Luffy glanced up, where his signature straw hat used to be, and grinned. "Shishishi, Sabo has it. Don't worry, Ace. He needs to return my hat, so he'll come back to us for sure!"

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From his vantage point on the ground, Sabo craned his neck towards the distortion up in the air, about 10 meters above where he stood. It was hard to make out, but he could see Blackbeard seething with anger, staring over at something, or someone, that Sabo couldn't see.

When he'd been swallowed from head to foot by darkness, Sabo had thought for sure he was a goner. No one could imagine the shock that ran through him when he found himself dumped out, quite unceremoniously, into the middle of a forest.

He knew instinctively, it was the other world. The smell of the air was different, the shape of the trees and the grass. The sound of birds chirping that by now was more familiar to him than the bird-sounds of the One Piece world.

Leaping up, he'd spotted the sizable hole that disturbed the shape of the sky. Within it, like a television screen, he could see Blackbeard's form laughing against a black backdrop. The screen was long and narrow, so Sabo couldn't see anything much except for Blackbeard, when he suddenly saw an abnormally elongated arm shoot in from somewhere on the left and punch Blackbeard in the face.

"Luffy!"

More concerned for Luffy's safety than anything else, Sabo attempted to jump through the hole that had brought him here for the second time.

Of course, just like before, his body simply passed right through the hole—not entering it, not passing through it, but just . . . bypassing it, as if it didn't exist at all. He tried a few more times, just to make sure, then gave up, knowing it was useless.

"Does this mean . . . I have to wait again?" slowly, a deep despair began to overwhelm him. "For the portal to open up? When I finally got to meet up with my brothers again, I get sent back to this godforsaken place? Dammit! I just wanted to be with my brothers! Is it so wrong, to want to live in my own world?"

He punched the tree beside him with all the rage he could muster, feeling the bark crack and splinter beneath his knuckles.

". . . Ace?"

Almost involuntarily, Sabo jumped towards the portal when he saw Ace captured by Blackbeard; it didn't do anything at all, so he tried shouting at him instead.

"Ace! Ace, get away from that guy! Do you want to be captured again? Ace!"

Sabo couldn't hear what was going on beyond the portal, he could only see. But the same couldn't be said for Ace, it seemed. Ace didn't even glance at Sabo, his angry glare directly fully at Marshall D. Teach.

"Hey, Ace! Ace! What, are you angry because you think I'm dead or something? I'm alive, you idiot brother! I'm here! I'm alright! You hear me, Ace? I'm alright!"

Sabo screamed with the desperation of a man afraid for his brother's life. He screamed with all his might, somehow hoping that his voice would carry across that boundary that his body couldn't.

There was neither rhyme or reason in what happened next.

Ace turned and looked right at Sabo.

For a moment, Sabo was thrilled. But then he realized that Ace couldn't actually see him—he saw Ace's eyes roaming, searching for the voice he had heard.

But he had _heard._

Sabo saw Ace's lips move. He could almost hear his name being called—Ace's voice. But he only imagined it, and the figures beyond the portal stayed silent. Their lips would move, and Sabo knew they were saying something, but to Sabo, it there was nothing but silence.

Even so, Ace could hear _him._

So Sabo yelled at him as loud as he could. "I've been in this world before! It's like that day years ago when I almost drowned, I know it! I found a way back once . . . I'll find a way to get back again, I promise, you hear? I'll come back! I'm sure I can find a way to go back if I try again! Don't worry about me, alright? Just wait for me!"

He would have said more, but at that moment the portal shrunk into the size of a small book. Sabo could barely make out the colors on the other side. Shapes moved, and something bright red like fire flared across the narrow tunnel of vision.

But then it was gone, and Sabo was left somehow feeling even more desperate than before. Had Ace heard him? Would he know that Sabo wasn't dead?

He hated to imagine what Ace and Luffy would be thinking right now, after finding out that he had been swallowed by Blackbeard's dark-dark fruit powers. Especially Luffy. The kid had been so happy to know that his 2nd brother was alive and well, but now . . . how could Sabo let him know that he was okay? Sabo himself didn't have the slightest clue as to what was going on.

Nobody knew the truth behind Blackbeard's devil's fruit. Even Sabo was starting to second-guess his previous theories with this new development. Why on earth did getting swallowed up by Blackbeard's power lead Sabo back _here_?

Did everything that Blackbeard absorbed get sent here?

Or was it just Sabo?

Come to think of it, he still hadn't figured out why he came here the first time—instead of drowning in the ocean. What mysterious force had enacted to save Sabo's life that day?

As Sabo stared at the chasm in the air, lost in thought, a familiar straw hat fell out of the hole.

. . . straw hat?

Sabo's eyes widened into the size of saucers as Luffy shot out of the hole, head-first, with his arms stretched over his head in a classic diving pose.

"LUFFY!?"

Their eyes made contact, and Luffy's face broke out into an overjoyed smile. "Sabo!"

"What are you . . . how?"

"Sabo, you're alive—!"

"Wait a minute, Lu—!"

And then he was gone.

Sabo's hand paused, reaching out towards the spot where Luffy's hand had been outstretched. Blinking in confusion, jaw hanging loose from disbelief, Sabo stood there for a long while afterwards, unmoving, even as the portal shrunk down into a microscopic size. Although he kept his eyes trained on the hole, waiting to see if Luffy would pop out again, nothing of the sort happened, and all he got to see was Blackbeard's various reactions to things happening off-screen.

The last thing he glimpsed before the portal disappeared altogether was Blackbeard turning tail and running away—at this point, Sabo had to hazard a guess that Whitebeard had made an appearance. If that was the case, Sabo could rest a little easier, knowing that Blackbeard still feared Whitebeard quite a bit.

At least Ace or Luffy wouldn't be in danger all over again.

"Now, what to do . . ." somehow, getting to see Luffy's smile one last time had helped calm him down. He could think more clearly now. Glancing down, Sabo stooped and picked up the worn straw hat that had fallen onto the ground.

As he examined it, Sabo muttered, "what are you doing, leaving your hat in a place like this . . . it's your pirate crew's symbol, you idiot. You're supposed to take better care of your treasure. What's Straw Hat Luffy without his straw hat?"

But even as he admonished his younger brother, he couldn't help smiling.

The portal had disappeared.

He was stranded in the middle of a forest without the slightest clue as to which country he was in.

He was left in the dark—he had no clue what was happening in the other world even now.

And worst of all, he didn't know when the portal would open again, if it did at all.

It was, in all probabilities, a worse-case scenario, just short of actual death.

Yet the rough texture of Luffy's straw hat felt strangely warm on his hands; it felt like the one link he had with his own world. The key to his eventual return.

"It's your important treasure, Luffy," Sabo grinned. "I'll have to return it to you before you set sail again."

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**A/N:**I solemnly promise that the epilogue will come within two weeks.


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